


you're the loveliest, lemon drop

by loseyoutoloveme



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (don't worry u don't need to know anything about hockey! apparently i just like sports in fics), Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Angst, F/M, First Love, Friends to Lovers, Lost Love, Mutual Pining, Unrequited Love, singing! is a big part of this too :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 54,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23622004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loseyoutoloveme/pseuds/loseyoutoloveme
Summary: You focus your attention on your cousin’s unrecognizable companion. His back is turned in most of the shots, his profile in the third image giving you a sliver of a glimpse at his face. Of course he’d be vaguely hot even in these crappy pap shots, but you really just don’t have any idea who he is.You voice it as much, “Who the hell is Jeffrey Jung anyways? America’s sweetheart?”
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Reader
Comments: 70
Kudos: 168





	1. soured memory

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy my quarantine fic round 2! i decided not to finish the whole thing like i did with my first one so no idea when the next two parts will be coming.
> 
> you don't need to have any hockey knowledge to understand this lol

It starts, of course, with Instagram.

All things now start with Instagram, a fact that you know exceedingly well. You long for the simpler days, when your local artisan painter would come to your colonial mansion to craft a baroque portrait over two days instead of fussing over iPhone camera shots and lighting. When your mail man would deliver a hand-rolled love scroll of ink covered parchment to your door instead of receiving lewd DM after lewd DM in your inbox.

When you could have a reason to ignore the way Mark’s eyes widen after he’s been scrolling away on his phone for fifteen minutes.

“Oh shit.”

“What?” You don’t even bother to look up from your computer again, especially when Ten gasps as well. The pair of them love the drama of it all, and this is surely no different.

“Never mind,” Mark shakes his head quickly, moving his phone screen so you have no direct path to take it from his hands. “You definitely don’t want to know.”

Now you’re just annoyed they’ve dangled this in your face and aren’t giving up the information.

“Unless this is something devastating, like the news of Chris Pine finally getting married to someone who isn’t me, I think I can handle it.”

“No,” Mark holds his ground, trying to hide his phone away into a crevice of the couch you can’t reach.

But you’re too fast, grasping for his right earlobe to tickle him there, sending him writhing in laughter and avoidance. The commotion knocks Ten out of the way, too, inching you a step closer to your goal.

“Give it!”

His body shifts just enough for you to pluck his phone from between the couch cushions, screen still open to whatever post he’d been so scandalized by. It’s from E!News, no surprise, considering how religiously he and Ten watch the Kardashians with Ten’s girlfriend.

The picture’s a little shadowy, but the captions make it perfectly clear.

> **@enews:** _EXCLUSIVE: The missing yellow ribbon found? Hollywood’s newest it girl Wendy Shon was spotted cozying up to America’s sweetheart Jeffrey Jung at Nobu tonight. Everything we know about their romantic late-night rendezvous at the link in our bio_

Okay, now you get just why Mark and Ten had tried to hide this from you, bless their little hearts.

It’s unmistakably Wendy in the paparazzi shot, her long blonde hair glistening even in the grainy glow of the streetlight. Your friends clearly think she’s still a sore spot for you, which, she sort of is. But you’ve also seen her plastered on billboards across LA for the past six months, and so, it irks at you a little bit less each time you see a new picture.

You idly swipe through the other slides in the post, each doing their best to zoom into Wendy’s smiling face, and shrug. “You really think I care about whatever wannabe Shawn Mendes my cousin’s been spotted out with? She was apparently seeing actual Shawn Mendes last month and clearly, that hasn’t worked out.”

It’s best for you to keep this subject at a taciturn arm’s length, so you focus your attention on your cousin’s unrecognizable companion. His back is turned in most of the shots, his profile in the third image giving you a sliver of a glimpse at his face. Of course he’d be vaguely hot even in these crappy pap shots, but you really just don’t have any idea who he is.

You voice it as much, “Who the hell is Jeffrey Jung anyways? America’s sweetheart?”

Ten and Mark share this look that you recognize, this _we can’t believe you_ look.

“You really don’t know?” Ten asks, the disbelief on his face also evident in his voice.

“No,” you really have never heard of Jeffrey Jung. Ever. “Should I?“

“Honestly, y/n, for the so-called queen of the athlete social media world you don’t know shit. _sunshine in the moonlight_ has been everywhere for the past few months,” Ten says exasperatedly, like this Jeffrey Jung is the Da Vinci of pop music and you should somehow recognize his Mona Lisa.

You feel like you’re missing something, but then you think of Ten’s Carly Rae Jepsen centered playlists and how they’re very much not like your Lil Baby ones. And then you get it.

“First off, you know that I absolutely don’t listen to the same kind of music you do. And second, _sunshine in the moonlight_? What the fuck kind of pretentious bullshit is that?”

Though you’d always prefer listening to rap music, you really don’t hate pop music. You appreciate it, even. What you’re tired of is every handsome man with a guitar in LA stringing together some flowery words and creaming the panties off every girl in the country. Every song is a complete copy paste of all the others, _I love you and you love me and let’s be together forever with our babies._

You recognize that you’re probably in the wrong place to avoid such dulcet sweet nothings, but come on! Where is the honesty? The poignancy? The devotion? You’d respect an LA pretty boy with a guitar the day one of their songs made you cry. And you seriously, seriously doubt that will ever happen.

You glance over at Mark, SoundCloud prowler Mark, flows of fury Mark, who was the one who actually got you into Lil Baby in the first place. You think he’s going to be your ally in this, that he’ll tell Ten that he has no idea what he’s talking about, but the fool is struggling to hold back this wistful little smile.

“Oh no,” you groan loudly. “Oh no, no, no. Mark, come on.”

“It’s a very sweet song. That’s all I’m going to say,” Mark offers, clearly embarrassed at being caught by you.

Ten scoffs, like that is the biggest load of shit, “You said yesterday, and I quote, _it is, like, the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard_.”

“Well, am I wrong?” Mark crosses his arms, incensed at the full exposure Ten’s putting him through. “You said yesterday you wanted to use that song when you propose to Lisa in the future!”

It’s Ten’s turn to sputter in indignation, but the way the tip of his nose turns crimson tells you that he indeed has been contemplating using this mysterious tune as the score for his inevitable engagement to his long term girlfriend.

“Shut up! Okay? No, no. You’re not wrong.”

They start to bicker back and forth about the varying hypothetical degrees they love this song, and you have to shout over them when it’s gone on for too long,

“Now that you’ve both thoroughly sucked this song off, are you going to show me it or not?”

The argument is forgotten in an instant. Mark launches himself over you to grab at your laptop,“Yeah, let me borrow your computer because this needs to be shown on full screen. He’s only released a lyric video so far, but it should be enough.”

Ten crushes himself onto the couch in anticipation as Mark sets up the video, and you can’t believe these two late twenties guys are salivating in delight as the dreamy guitar starts to emanate from the speakers.

You’ve seen enough low quality pap shots to feel confident in your earlier observation that Jeffrey Jung was vaguely hot, but the moment he steps onto the minimalist set, you realize _vaguely_ was not the right word to use. Hot probably wasn’t right, either.

He is stunningly beautiful in this specific way that you’ve never quite seen from anyone in the music scene of LA. Or really just from anyone. He’s got the quintessential traits of a celebrity — broad, sloping shoulders that settle comfortably within his white suit, conveniently unbuttoned with a missing undershirt; an easy mouth, conveniently blessed with a twin set of charming dimples; a lethal combination of elegant cheekbones and cutting jaw line, conveniently elevating him into the stratosphere of looks.

But it goes beyond just those things, beyond his striking lilac hair and flashing gold necklace complete with a delicate leaf pendant, beyond the way he confidently settles himself into the carved wood chair, beyond the way his voice is actually warm and mellow and sort of wonderful.

It’s more about the way his lips curve into this smile, like he knows how to pluck at the strings of you here from his place there. And how his eyes gleam in such an inviting way, so earnest and thoughtful, all wrapped up with a slight teaspoon of mystery and a dash of familiarity.

The lyrics flash across the bottom of the screen as he sings, written in this rugged yet looping script that you know has to be his handwriting.

> _I still remember it, the girl with the yellow ribbon in her hair,_
> 
> _the merry laughter of the stars, formed in a spotlight for her there._
> 
> _I was the secret, a hidden shadow tucked into the night,_
> 
> _but she was all of the sunshine in the moonlight_

There’s this tiniest, smallest, most minuscule little molecule of deja vu that pings into you as a result of his singing. Before you can stop it, your thumb hits the space bar, pausing the video.

“Why’d you stop it that quick!” Ten whines, but you don’t move your hand from the keyboard so he can restart it.

“This is….,” your tongue is heavy in your mouth as your words fade out.

You’ve never seen this man before in your life, have never heard his voice or known his name or anything about him. There’s nothing that should be giving you deja vu. The more pressing question is why your body is covered in this pricking sensation of an itch you can’t scratch, this sort of tense flush that makes you wildly uncomfortable. It’s so unlike the buttoned up manner you usually conduct yourself in that you don’t know how to act.

“Beautiful?”

“Heartwrenching?”

“The best thing you’ve ever heard?”

You shake yourself out of your confused daze of false remembrance for any sort of response that won’t give your apprehension away. You settle on,

“Kind of cliché.”

“What are we talking about?” A deep voice rings into the apartment, door slamming shut right after.

“Yo, Hong, you’re back!”

Whew.

Joshua’s arrival is just the shot in the arm you need, the one anchor to drag you back down to earth. Now you know the flutter of your heart is true, not a false one brought forth by some idiot crooner who’s definitely nothing special. This is something real you can hone in on, his gear bag on the ground and his sweaty bangs sticking to his forehead. The way he ignores Ten’s hello to wink at you.

You start mouthing off immediately, “These idiots have been getting me to stan Jeffrey Jung for the past ten minutes.”

“Hey to you too,” Josh pokes at you easily, your banter slipping back into place even after his month away. He leans over the couch to look at what you’re watching, recognition written all over his face when he says, “You mean _sunshine in the moonlight?_ I don’t know, the guys kinda got me into it when we were on the road.”

You can’t imagine Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar in the Kings locker room, listening to the same song you’ve just sampled a snippet of. Or any of the other big hockey goons that Josh calls his teammates doing the same, really. But as you glance up, he’s mouthing the words along to the video that Mark has taken the liberty to resume.

You push at his shoulder, scoffing, “Are you kidding me?”

Joshua ruffles your hair, eliciting a yelp from you as he pushes back, “I don’t know, princess, did you listen to the lyrics? It’s about long-lost first love, which is one of the purest, most beautiful things.”

Josh is a softie at heart, always quick to add a heart emoji or kiss face into his messages, an easy crier at rom coms and dramas alike, and a big fan of playing guitar himself. You imagine he’d be good at picking flowers and gifts for his girlfriend, and that won’t have to be your imagination soon, either. So, it sort of makes sense that he likes it.

“I don’t even remember my first love,” you scoff, eliciting eye rolls from all three of your male companions. “Don’t look at me like that! You don’t think it’s cliché? This could be a legitimate bootleg of John Mayer’s early work.”

You don’t know why the harsh words come from you so easily, why you feel so compelled to deny the quality of the music, but you do.

“I don’t think John Mayer’s ever made me feel like this, to be honest,” Ten sighs.

Mark smacks him on the arm, “Fantasize about him later. Click the next vid.”

He does, and you’re greeted by the sunny blonde news anchor of Good Morning LA and the man of the hour, dressed in this paisley yellow jacket that you hate-love.

“We’re here today with national sensation Jeffrey Jung, whose viral hit _sunshine in the moonlight_ soared to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 only a week after its release. Jeffrey, welcome.”

His speaking voice is melodic as you anticipate, words dredging up that same molecule from before, even with his generic opening of,

“Hi, thank you so much for having me on.”

The interviewer keeps her eyes on the cards she’s reading from, but the blush on her cheeks is a clear sign that she is not immune to his presence, “Your previous single, _rose cascade_ , saw moderate success here in the US, but your explosion with _sunshine_ has been unreal. Do you have anything you want to say about that?”

“Yeah, I want to thank my family and my team, without them I would’ve never been able to do this. And to my fans, my Double Js, thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

He is so easy-going and polite it’s your turn to roll your eyes. In your five years in this industry, you’ve learned more than enough times that this sort of over-the-top refinement is always an act. No person can actually be like this in real life. You’ve tried it once before, and had to settle with said no-nonsense version of yourself that rarely slipped out of place.

“Is there any reason why you think this song seems to resonate more with global listeners?”

“I mean, this song is. I don’t know. This song is about a time that really played a strong hand in sculpting who I am as a person. It feels more like me than anything I’ve ever written,” Jeffrey muses softly, more to himself than the anchor or the camera, and the incessant itchiness is back.

He unnerves you in such a specific way that you’re unconsciously grappling between wanting to never see his face again and absorbing every little bit of him when he continues, a bit louder this time,“It’s just this tiny little canyon of my heart, not something I really ever brought up to anyone. But one day when I sat down to record, it just exploded out of me like I couldn’t bear to keep it in any further. People love love stories, they love romance, and this is mine.”

“But you’re single, right?”

His smile floods with coyness, a ping of depth to him that you’ve haven’t been able to detect yet, “I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also have a story to tell.”

“I have to ask since everyone’s dying to know,” she puts her cards aside and you already know the question she’s about to present him with. “Can you tell us who this song is about?”

“I can’t, unfortunately.” Of course, he’s never going to give up the secret so easily, least of all to some random interview from a local news channel.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Can’t because she didn’t even tell me her name when I met her.” Oh? That’s the first time you’ll allow yourself to acknowledge that you’re intrigued. “But I still think of her, and hope she’s doing well, wherever she is.”

Not knowing the name of the girl he wrote a song about practically spells out a drunken night’s encounter, but you are almost certain that that’s not it. The nostalgia is too palpable in the way his voice trails off at the end of his sentence.

The reporter is clearly pleased by this revelation, clapping her hands together happily.

“Hopefully she’s single wherever she is!”

“Haha,” Jeffrey shakes his head, fidgeting a bit with a scrap of something around his wrist. “I hope she’s happily in love with a boyfriend or something. It’d make me happy to know she was happy.”

“Ladies, if you think this is you, you know who to call.”

Ten pauses the video right then and turns to you, “Wait, wait, do you think that Wendy might be the girl in the song?”

Joshua looks at you in confusion and you groan, pulling up the Instagram for him to see, “Ugh, this video must be old because she and that Jeffrey dude were spotted out on a date yesterday, according to E!news’s account…”

His pretty eyes scan the post and then he shrugs, “Huh, sounds like it could be. You don’t know?”

You know for certain that three of your paths had not crossed in the time you’ve known Wendy. You, uh, you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t have been able to forget someone like Jeffrey Jung.

“I have no idea,” you admit, standing up under pretenses of retrieving a glass of water, but really to hide the nerves that are starting to creep up on you. “I only went to live with my aunt and uncle when we were ten. I have no idea if she knew him before.”

“Has to be a high school or college first love, though, right? No way this is about some kid or childhood first love?” Ten wonders out loud, clearly having thought about this.

“Absolutely not,” Mark agrees. “Childhood loves are not that deep.”

“The song wasn’t deep,” you scoff, trying to get everyone off this subject as soon as possible. “And his answer screamed old one night stand.”

Both Mark and Ten stick their tongues out at you as you feel Josh’s hand dance secretively across the back waistline of your jeans. He copies their gesture, teasing you with,

“You’re just a negative Nancy.”

As Josh’s hand presses into the skin of your hip then, Mark pushes Ten back to the computer with an urgent, “Come on, ignore her and click to the next interview, I need to see what he’s wearing. Instagram recreation incoming.”

Sharing a knowing look, the two of you take a quiet step backwards as Ten starts the queued video, confessing to Mark, “He’s totally my dude crush.”

They’re so totally engrossed with the video that you feel confident enough to grab Joshua’s hand, even more so to kiss him first on the cheek, his eyes closing lazily as he grabs your hips fully. You move to kiss his mouth, finally happy to have him back after his month away, but he stops you, whispering,

“Wait, not here.”

You don’t have enough time to frown in disappointment before he’s pulling you into his room, the two of you collapsing into his bed in an arc of expounded feeling. It’s so nice to have him back, to have him press his lips against yours in a worked up frenzy this quickly. It’s all evidence that he’s missed you.

Your life is so empty when he’s on a road trip, he doesn’t call nearly enough and the time differences are always a lot. That’s why you’re so grateful he lives with Ten, who doesn’t care if you come over to fold Josh’s laundry during the dog days of his time away. It’s kind of funny, the fact that you and Ten are both technically Josh’s employees — his social media manager and agent, respectively — but just la di da around his apartment without a care on most days.

Once you’ve been thoroughly kissed, hair a mess, happy smile across your face as you sit in his lap, you ask coquettishly, “Did you miss me?”

“Hmm, what?” He’s distracted by the incessant pinging of his phone, just another byproduct of the celebrity life he lives as an athlete.

“Never mind,” you press another kiss to his cheek. “How was the road trip?”

He leans back against his bed’s headboard, clearly fully satisfied with his life at the moment, “Good. Scored three goals and had two assists this past week. Also got some good Miami content I need you to check out before I post.”

You actually frown this time. You’d been looking forward to spending some alone time with him ever since you saw this trip penciled into his calendar.

“Do you want to do that later? I came over to do work specifically because I knew your flight was landing today.”

Joshua is reaching for his phone now, already blazing out messages and tapping through his apps as he responds, “The PR team needs me to put up a picture because I haven’t been keeping up with my scheduled posts.”

You purposefully get off of him at that in annoyance. Before he left, he’d very carefully followed the routine you and Ten had set up to maximize his social media following. You had even emailed him detailed instructions for what to do while he was on the east coast. How hard was it to snap a picture and post?

“Ugh, Josh, we talked about this.”

He does look guilty about that, and he cups your face as he acknowledges it, “I know, I know, but it’s so much easier if I leave it all to you, right babe? That is why I hired you, isn’t it?”

Of course. You’re his employee first and whatever you were to him actually second. Just because that’s the lay of the land here in LA, the ultimate world of blurred lines, doesn’t mean you have to like it. His pink lips pout as he tries to kiss you and you duck away, more than mildly put off by his words, only biting out a sharp,

“Right.”

He doesn’t pick up on it, because his phone rings at that precise moment, with a call from one of his teammates.

“Hello? Zhong, my man, what’s up?!”

You sit on the bed dumbly for a few more seconds until it’s clear that the conversation isn’t wrapping up soon. Josh and Chenle had just been on a plane home together, how much more time did they need to talk? But ever the dutiful you, you get up and leave the room, closing the door behind you so he can finish the call in peace.

Ten is locked in his room, clearly on a video chat with Lisa if the effervescent Thai bubbling through the door is any clue. Mark is lying on the couch now, but your laptop is still blasting Jeffrey Jung interviews. Not this, again.

“Move, move,” you shoo him away so you have a place to sit. “I need my laptop back so I can work.”

Mark groans, long and drawn out and exaggerated, “You mean photoshop Hong’s pictures so his extra-perfect abs can get a thousand extra likes.”

While you and Ten are connected to Joshua directly through your careers, Mark had been your housemate at UCLA and therefore had no exceeding loyalty to the hockey player. Thus, he never makes it a secret how he truly feels.

You snatch the laptop out of his hands, nose upturned at his… sadly spot on prediction of what you’d spend the next few hours doing, “Josh plays for the Kings, Mark, he already gets likes. This is my job, nothing more, nothing less.”

It’s true, this is what you’re paid for. Sure, his hockey talents had earned him a spot on the roster, but you’ve made him into LA’s darling boy, adored by women and men and everyone in between. Handsome, an athlete, with a side hobby of playing guitar made it easy for you to do so, but he’s an unrivaled, unattainable goal now. All because of you.

“Y/n…”

“Don’t give me that look,” you lower your screen because you know Mark won’t let this go until you assuage him in some way.

He lowers his voice, but his frustration clearly rings into your ears, “He said he’d stop the PR thing with Lia and go public with you during the All-Star break, but that was six weeks ago!”

You’re actually kind of proud of yourself, how the mention of the beautiful Lia Choi doesn’t bother you anymore. Of course, when Rogers & Cowan reached out to Ten and the agency to float the idea of a relationship between Josh and Lia, you’d been secretly distraught, as besotted with Josh as you were.

But he’d made it abundantly clear that his very public relationship with Lia was just a performance, just another rung in the business ladder he intended to climb outside of hockey. Once he’d reaped the benefits of dating an actress like her, a move that you have to admit was a smart one to make, it’d be only you. You didn’t have anything to worry about.

“He was on a road trip the past month,” you wave your well-meaning friend away, this being the one thing you’ll choose to be willingly naive about forever. “It’ll happen when it happens.”

Mark looks skeptical, but he chooses not to press any further, “Okay. If you say so.”

You open your laptop back up, and a smiling Jeffrey Jung on your screen gives you pause. You wonder what he would think of you. You wonder why you care.

> **@hong94:** ay, míamí! great road trip with my boys! happy to be back in LA

—

You’re on your way out of the office, with half a mind to pick up Chipotle and crash at home for the night, when your phone goes off. Joshua had changed the ringtone for himself in your phone within the first week of you meeting, and even now, you still wait until the last possible moment to pick up so you can sing along.

_My loneliness is killing me, I must confess I still believe, When I'm not with you I lose my mind, Give me a sign, hit me, baby, one more time_

Ugh, no one does it like Britney.

“Hey, what are you doing tonight?” Josh asks as soon as you’ve stopped your little moment and answered.

“Nothing planned, why?” You purposefully miss the turn for your usual Chipotle, continuing on on the highway until you know what he wants.

Is this it? Is he actually asking you on a real date? The two of you had spent so much time cooped up in his room eating take out since he got home that you want to enjoy a promenade out in the public. An athlete having dinner with a member of his team won’t be suspicious. You'll be the only one pretending otherwise.

Oh, you only have your business blouse on, damn you for not having anything flirtier in your car, no matter how much Mark’s old Tupac tee is calling at you.

“Can you come down to the rink?” Never mind. “I need some post-game shots as per Ten’s request.”

You’re so glad he chose to actually call instead of FaceTiming you, because there’s no obvious way to hide the way your face slides into disappointment. The fatal appeal of efficiently successful business y/n has struck again.

“The team has photographers,” you grumble, not wanting to be summoned for fifty thousand iPhone pics of which there’ll only be two pictures that you and Ten will both be satisfied with. “Can’t you get Zhong or Petersen or anyone else to do that for you?

“I’ll leave you a ticket, though,” Josh starts to lay it on thick, knowing just how much you truly love hockey as a sport. Then, flirtier, “And you’ll get to see me.”

You hate yourself, for letting him affect you in this way, and even more so for indulging in the fantasy of you walking out of the rink hand in hand, him showing you off, all shiny and proud.

“Fine.”

He whoops loudly, the noise rattling through your receiver in his victory, “See you later, babe. Player’s entrance.”

Luckily, missing the turn for Chipotle had been the right decision, because the highway takes you right down to the Staples Center in some remarkable lack of traffic. And that means when you get to the entrance, there’s no line in front of Tae Lee, your favorite ticket vendor.

“Hey, T,” you bump fists with him when you get to the window. “What’s good?”

He adjusts his new glasses, turquoise frames so stylish on his handsome face. “Hey, y/n, long time no see!”

“It was a long road trip,” you lament as you hand over your ID and card. “And Mark didn’t want to come see the Lakers.”

He types through the requisite screens on his computer, the easternmost corner of his mouth dipping slightly into a frown you don’t catch.

“Just you today?” Tae clarifies, and that question you very clearly catch.

“What?” You ask in confusion, because he usually just gives you the ticket so you can go right in. “Just me. It’s always just a regular ticket and a media pass.”

You have to check your calendar, maybe today is one of the games Lia is supposed to show up to and you just missed it. But Tae waves it away before you can unlock your phone.

“Never mind, where do you want them today?”

You grin in excitement, “Lower bowl, if you can. I want it to be rowdy.”

You’ve sat all over at the Staples Center, from the media box, to the VIP booth, all the way up to the bloodiest of nosebleeds. You love it all, but nothing compares to sitting right by the action, in the eye of the hailstorm that is drunk hockey fans. The chill in the air, the yelling, the beer showers, nothing compares.

Once you’re officially dating Josh, you’re sure there’s all sorts of informal rules and decorum about being seen as a WAG at games, so you’re going to revel in this for a little longer.

“Have fun!” Tae chirps cheerily after he’s given you the tickets, waving at you from his booth as you go. But you’re too far away to hear his quiet warning of, “Be careful!”

You tuck the media pass away into your bag, so you won’t lose it when you need it later, and you make your way through the family entrance into the bowels of the stadium. You’re cutting it real close, there’s only about five minutes before the national anthem is scheduled to start. You begin to hurry your way through the crowds that are all heading to their seats.

You take a left at the artisan pizza kiosk, briskly stroll past one, two, three hot dog vendors, and…. barrel your way right into someone. The pace you’d been utilizing apparently was even more brutal than you realized, because the person goes flying against the nearest wall.

“Oh, I am so, so sorry,” you apologize swiftly, when the impact of their body hitting the concrete sends a wince right through you.

“It’s no problem. Don’t worry.” Easy-going and soft. Huh.

You look up, and laugh in spite of yourself, “Hold up. Jeffrey Jung?”

It’s definitely the singer, and like, it’s unfair that he can rock a denim jacket over jeans like he’s doing right now. Unfair that after getting clotheslined into concrete, his messy yet sophisticated hair is still perfectly in place. Unfair that it’s already obvious to you he is that polite and morally upright in person.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Despite the fact that you were the one who rocked him, Jeffrey looks at you with concern, then his eyes crinkle in happy recognition. “Wait, are you a Double J?”

Your jaw goes slack. You… a what?

One of the suit-clad men, so surreptitiously positioned you didn’t even register him there, bends forward to whisper in his ear, “Mr. Jung, it’s time.”

You expect him to follow his bodyguard, but Jeffrey Jung is talking to you again and it takes you a second to focus in on that fact, what exactly he’s saying.

“Can you do me a favor and stay here? I’ll take a picture and sign as soon as I’m done, I promise.”

You nod, transfixed as he shoots you that uber-familiar smile. What, simply what, is going on here? Why have you just run into apparent mega-celebrity Jeffrey Jung at this run of the mill regular season Kings game, and why is he asking you a favor? Moreover, why are you now glued to this spot, like he’s cast some spell over you with his words?

Your section is literally up the stairs to your left, through the same entryway he just walked through, you literally could hand your ticket over to the usher from where you’re standing right now, but you can’t.

The announcer’s booming voice rings through the speakers above your head,

“Ladies and gentlemen, please stand and remove your hats to honor our country. Performing tonight’s national anthem, please welcome the current number one artist on Billboard, Jeffrey Jung!”

You’ve heard the Staples Center explode in cheers for Drake and Migos, for LeBron’s first game, even for when the Kings won their last Stanley Cup in 2014. That had all been the ruckus of a frenzied brouhaha, all enrapturing in their own exhausting ways. This is different. The roar of the crowd is deafening, large contingent of feminine trills audible from where you are, but it is all dosed with this effervescent glow of adoration.

They, well. They _love_ him.

And he hasn’t even sung yet. What sort of voodoo has his song done on America?

The national anthem hasn’t changed, but you’re glued to the little TV monitor that’s on the wall above you. He sings it honestly, matter of factly, crisply enunciating each of the words without excessive embellishment. But it’s the way his eyes drip with affection as he gazes into his seats, in the utmost expression of gratitude. He easily could’ve been singing the most lovelorn song made in recorded history instead of the patriarchal tune.

He’s Medusa and the sirens melded together into one. You want your eyesight to wither away and your ears to plug forever, you want both of those senses to just go before you’re affected any further.

He comes strolling down the stairs only seconds later, like he’d just taken a lap around the rink and not performed the national anthem in front of twenty thousand belligerent fans. You don’t know why you’d picture a puffed out chest, some kind of swagger, and not the little wave he sends your way when he spots you still standing there.

And you wave back like an idiot, because what the fuck else are you supposed to do?

“You’re still here, great,” he gestures a tall brunette over, clearly pleased that you’ve stuck around like he requested. “John, come over here and take a picture of us.”

Before you register what’s going on, Jeffrey’s gently taking your phone out of your hand and passing it over to this John, who lines it up to take a photo. Normally, it’s the celebrity that’s awkward in these photo ops, but no, you’re definitely taking that role in this. Between the way your arms hang lamely at your sides and your totally shell-shocked expression, it makes for a comical photo.

Jeffrey, of course, salvages the image, with the warm way he throws his arm around your shoulders without a care, folding you neatly into the curve of his side, his bright smile flooding the zone with luminosity.

“Do you have anything for me to sign?” Your hands again move without you telling them to, handing over your printed ticket, which is conveniently the only paper good you have on your person. “Who should I make this out to?”

“Y/n.”

“So, y/n,” and really, you should not be watching his mouth form the syllables of your name. “How long have you been a Double J?”

You cough, startled by the sudden line of questioning, _just lie y/n, just lie, do it!_

“I, um, I am not… a Double J?”

“What?” Jeffrey’s head darts up in surprise at your confession, teeth biting at the crest of his lip in muted disappointment. “Oh, I thought you were a fan. I feel so dumb.”

He is truly too brilliantly him to ever look sad like this, you’re sure of it, so you literally stumble over yourself multiple times to give him the truth,

“No, I’m, I’m so, so sorry for making you feel dumb. My best friend showed me your video a few days ago and I recognized you from it. I do social media PR for Joshua Hong, he’s a forward on the Kings, actually he’s playing right now.Your national anthem was very nice, probably one of the best I’ve heard for a while. Oh fuck, I’m rambling now.”

You’re a train wreck, words spiraling out into this tornado of mishmash that is truly another level of embarrassing. You never get this visibly flustered, not even at the peak of your crush on Josh. Honestly, what the fuck.

He chuckles, a little sixteenth note of joy, “It’s okay, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry,” your nails bite into the skin at the crease of your thumb, nervous habit manifesting itself. You admit it softly and reluctantly, “I think this is the first time I’ve ever been star struck.”

The chuckle turns into full-bellied laughter from the man across from you, complete with a nose crinkle and some very unflattering snorts, “Star struck? By me? I don’t believe that.”

This is decidedly not a lie and you don’t know why it’s something you’d admit. You’ve been around Josh’s teammates for two years now, have run into everyone from Rachael Ray to Leonardo fucking DiCaprio at some work event or another. You’d never, not ever, not once, not in the least, not in any way, not on your life, acted in this way.

“I mean, it’s weird, I’ve been in LA for so long I guess I got used to it.”

“You need to teach me your ways, because I almost fainted when I saw Keanu Reeves on Rodeo the other day,” Jeffrey tells you, instantly making him feel relatable to an incredible level. “Where did you say you worked again?”

You look down grimly at your work attire, feeling your severe bun pull at your scalp as you hold out your pinned ID, “USCA Sports. I work on Joshua Hong’s team.”

“USCA, huh?” He hums to himself as he contemplates your employee photo, giving you the strange urge to tell him you didn’t have time to fix your flyaways that day. “I guess I have a meeting with you tomorrow.”

He what?

Granted, because of this whole game detour and running into Jeffrey Jung thing, you haven’t exactly had the time to read Ten’s ten emails all with IMPORTANT PLEASE READ!!! glaring from the subject line. Mark must be involved in this somehow. You don’t know how, but you know he is.

“Oh, okay,” you brush it off nonchalantly. “I knew we were meeting people from R&C tomorrow, but didn’t realize it was you. That’s weird, but like, ultimately cool.”

“I don’t know much about it either, I mainly just go where my agent Johnny tells me to,” he gestures over to the same man who’d taken your picture earlier.

An enraged outcry from the crowd interrupts your conversation, the two of you take a pause to watch the replay of the disallowed goal on the TV. Once play resumes, you want the conversation to do so too,

“So, Jeffrey…”

“Jaehyun.”

“What?”

His red ears clash with the purple of his hair as his hands disappear into the sleeves of his jacket when he fidgets,

“Ah, Jeffrey is my middle name. An adopted stage name, if you will. The people who know me well usually call me Jaehyun.”

You’re suddenly a person who knows Jaehyun Jung. How?

“Jaehyun,” you address him properly, not wanting to disrespect this privilege he’s given you. “Korean, yeah?”

The smile he rewards you with, the ostentatiously glittering arc of his lips, is far too expensive of a prize. “Yeah, you’re like, one of the only people here who hasn’t had a problem with my name.”

You think of Mark, and his friendly immigrant parents, and the way he’d only gone by Mark after the first week of freshman year. Of course you wouldn’t have a problem with it.

“My friend who showed me your video is Korean. I hear him speaking it with his family all the time. Jeffrey because it’s easier to say, no doubt? Sometimes the industry is stupid like that.”

His mouth flattens into a line in displeasure, “Yeah, it seems like it.”

“You’ve been here for how long now?” You ask instead, not wanting his displeasure to linger any longer than it has to.

“I lived here until I was like a pre-teen? I forget exactly,” he continues to chat with you easily, like you’re catching up on lost time. “But it’ll be a year back at the end of April. Feels simultaneously like a lifetime and a nanosecond. You?”

You can give him the short of it all, just say the number of years and go, but you’re now a person who knows him. That means he has to know you, too.

“I’ve been working out here since I was twenty-two, but I moved out to LA as a kid to live with my aunt and uncle. Long story.”

It is too long of a story to tell Jaehyun though, one that takes up far too much of his already precious and limited time. When you don’t elaborate any further, he must pick up on your apprehension because he offers,

“Sure, I mean, I respect that, that’s probably an important part of who you are.”

You’re so struck by that sympathetic comment, by someone keeping their distance and not trying to pry like so many people do — like someone else did when Mark had accidentally brought it up once — that you want to thank him in some way. You don’t want to just say the words, and offering money is tacky, so you blurt the first thing you think of,

“Do you like hockey, Jaehyun?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I love it. Spent my formative years in Long Island as a huge Islanders fan. I’ve always wanted to sing the national anthem at a hockey game.”

He looks so happy then, cheeks tinged with pink as he revels in his accomplishment, that you really get it, exactly why everyone had cheered so loudly for him at the beginning of the night.

You flip the ticket he’d signed for you back over so he can see the seat designation on the front, “So, I know you probably are leaving or have fancy VIP tickets. But a perk of working for a player is that I can pick any seats I want. Want to get in the thick of it and be complete hooligans?”

Jaehyun doesn’t even get a chance to answer before Johnny is shoving a phone in his face, muttering lowly so you can’t overhear. You can’t see his face, to read if he’s annoyed or disappointed, but you do hear his apology,

“Ugh, I’m sorry. I’d really love to, but you’re right. I have to leave.”

You know intimately what a celebrity schedule is like. How could you have even thought to have asked the most popular singer around to sit and shoot the shit at a hockey game like you were old pals? Simply foolish.

“Oh, okay.”

Then his warm hand is on your shoulder, burning down into you through the starched blazer you have on, and he should not be as close as he is now, close enough that you can smell whatever Chanel influenced flavor of cologne he has on.

“Hey listen, I will see you tomorrow, first off. And second, you can put me down for a rain check on the hooliganery. Cross my heart.”

Jaehyun uses his thumb to cross an X over his sternum, then flicks it out in a thumbs up towards you. In a flash, his security surrounds him in a flurry to safely escort him out of the Staples Center.

Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean the spell he cast over you earlier has dissipated with him.

Because you’re hearing your ten year old self warbling a made up nursery rhyme, two sets of little fingers crossing at your chest in exactly the same way, twin voices high and giggly with optimism still somehow present, _yellow and tart, a slice of lemon pie, cross my heart and hope to die!_

Even though _cross my heart_ is such a pervasive and widely-used phrase, you can’t let go of it, it lends itself to that same incessant itch you’d felt before. Even though you stay in the receiving area for an extra half an hour taking photos of Josh and Mikey Anderson laughing together, you can’t keep your unoccupied hand from lingering by the same spot on your chest. And even though Josh invites you to sleep over afterwards, you can’t defend yourself against that molecule of deja vu any longer.

You’re a person who knows Jaehyun Jung, but you’re not entirely sure that only started today.

—

You’re the first person to arrive to the agency dinner the next night, but you’re actually not, because there’s a little slip of paper waiting for you by your name card.

“What is this?” You mutter out loud, because there’s no one around.

“A rain check.”

You nearly leap out of your heels at the surprise sound, turning to see Jaehyun appearing out of nowhere beside you. Even though you know he has a stylist, it’s hard not to feel jealous at how effortlessly put together he looks right now, sport coat over a plain white v neck over acid wash jeans, the twinkle of a gold earring in his ear you hadn’t noticed before.

“Oh! Oh my god, I didn’t see you there,” you’re unable to keep the affected giggles out of your voice, both at being caught off guard and being caught off guard by _him._ “It’s a what? Let me read.”

You hold up the tiny slip of paper to your eyes, squinting to read in the dark light of the restaurant’s back room. It’s definitely his handwriting, refined and easily recognizable from the video you’d watched:

_I, Jaehyun Jung, promise to become a full hooligan with y/n, on the date and game of her choice. The definition of full hooligan encompasses donning an obnoxious jersey, copious beer consumption, and any and all trash talking that is allowed within my public image._

A very loud cackle escapes your lips at the mental picture of pretty boy Jaehyun three sheets to the wind, trying to chirp at the players with the hardened hockey fans surrounding him. You can’t imagine phrases like _hey fuckface, my left nut dangles better than you_ coming out of him at all.

“How do we have the same definition of full hooligan, Jaehyun?”

His eyes twinkle merrily as you continue to laugh, so entertained by him. He glances down at the place card right in front of him, and then the one immediately to his left. The maître d' had shown you right to your seat and Jaehyun had showed up right after, so you haven’t had a chance to see exactly who else is joining you at the meeting. He pauses, just a fraction of a second, then switches the settings so he can sit right across from you.

He lazily lowers himself onto his chair, shaking his hair back in a mock preen that only makes you laugh harder, “I told you. Hockey fan. How was the rest of your night?”

Jaehyun definitely needs to know zero percent of what exactly you and Josh got up to last night. You’re grateful for the dark lighting, because you don’t need him to see the flush of your neck, either. It helps that the other team members have begun to file in, nodding mutely at either you or your companion. And lucky for you, he’s not asking for details.

“Decent. You?”

There’s an expectation of an echoed but vague formality, a _nice_ , or _good,_ but Jaehyun blows a breath out of his mouth, then admits, “Pretty mediocre, not going to lie. We’ve been trying to come up with ideas for a music video, but nothing’s really working for me yet.”

“Music video?”

“Yeah, for _sunshine._ The management team wants more than just a lyric video, but like I said, nothing the company is floating really resonates with me.”

It’s refreshingly honest from someone like him, he’s obviously not inclined to keep up whatever shiny, tinny sheen of gold plating that keeps his celebrity aura in place. It jabs at you, this little droplet of sadness for him, that he’s frustrated in this way.

“And what do you want?” You ask, because it’s obvious this song means something to him, he must have some kind of idea of what he’s picturing.

The glass of water he’s holding stops halfway to his lips, teeth pulling at the skin of his lips in the same nervous habit you saw at the arena. “Oh. No one’s asked me that before.”

Classic, classic LA. You feel bad for him, really, you do.

You purse your lips, hoping no one at this dinner today will make you madder on his behalf, “You’re lucky I’m looking out for you, then.”

Jaehyun coughs a little on the sip of water he’s just taken, wiping at his face with a napkin as he idles away in thought, “I think… Okay, I do want a music video, I just want one that fits the song, but everything they’ve been floating has just felt so wrong.”

“How so?” If you want to get him talking about this in the right way, you have to ask him the right questions

“Okay, so, most videos are incredibly extravagant these days. They have these ludicrous outfits and stacks of money everywhere and just ooze sex out of every inch of film.” He lists these things with a thinly veiled air of disgust but it makes sense, with who he is. “And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But this song is… not that. I mean, this is about someone I knew as a long time ag—,”

“Jeff, you’re here already babe!”

“Y/n.”

Fuck this interruption, and fuck Ten for not including any of this in his TEN emails.

Because behind the returning maître d' is not just Josh and Ten, with Johnny and some of Jaehyun’s team like you expected. It’s Josh _and_ Lia, followed closely by _Wendy._

“Oh my fuck,” you involuntarily curse under your breath. “Fuck outta here.”

Jaehyun clearly catches your spew of profanity, because he turns to look at you, but that gesture dooms you because it casts all the nonexistent spotlights of the room upon you. That makes it impossible for your cousin to miss you, and you know she’s fighting herself when she greets you coolly,

“Y/n.”

This is a practiced routine, formal smile, slight incline of the head, ninety-five percent less vitriol in your tone.

“Wendy.”

She’s as beautiful as ever, sunny blonde hair cascading to her waist in a tumble of curls,voice high and clear, black blazer dress matching Jaehyun’s. You try to think of how long it’s been since you’ve spoken to her in person, and you can only come up with last year’s Oscar after-party, when you’d literally _sprinted_ out of the women’s bathroom to avoid a conversation with her.

Jaehyun glances at the actress next to him, back to you, back to her in this comical back and forth that you would’ve laughed at, at any other time, “Do you two… know each other?”

The reply spits out of you in an instant, “Yup.”

You had to make sure you answered first, because you know what would’ve happened otherwise. The first time you dipped your toe into the world of Hollywood after your graduation, when you’d worked for a soccer player that was consulting on one of Wendy’s TV shows, the same exchange had happened. Only then, Wendy had lied and told Tiffany that she had no idea who you were.

And, of course, naive and tender-hearted, you let her get away with it. Now, you’re too hardened to let her try.

Wendy cowers a bit when your eyebrow shoots up, a defiant _try it if you dare_ gesture, and she grasps his bicep as she reveals in a saccharinely nice tone,

“Yeah, Jeff, she’s my cousin!”

Jaehyun’s mouth opens in shock, then he laughs in with a splitting grin, “Oh what? Wow! That’s crazy!”

“Yeah, crazy,” you parrot back dully, stepping over to do the perfunctory ‘air kiss that no one wants’ with your cousin. “I had no idea that you two were dating.”

Josh overhears what you say and gives you this look like, _what are you talking about,_ but you can’t focus on him when Jaehyun’s looking so thrilled with everything that’s going on. If only he knew.

“This is like, a new thing, I guess,” he’s talking so fast at you. “We’re not exclusive but it’s cool. I’m happy.”

“Hello, everyone!”

The details of Jaehyun’s relationship with your cousin are cut short by the flourishing entrance of Max Shim, all dolled up in his finest Versace.

You gulp nervously. The fact that Max is here is not a good sign. Yes, he is in charge of the division that represents both Lia and Wendy, so it does make sense he’s here. Even though you’ve only met Lia’s agent’s boss’s boss once before — at that first meeting where it was decided that Lia and Josh’s mutualistic fake relationship would be put into place — you know what he’s a harbinger of.

He’s going to blow everything up tonight, you know he is. After all, when Josh had broached him with the idea of ending things with Lia, apparently the screaming match went on for hours before Max finally relented.

Ten stabs a harsh elbow into your side from his place to your right, hissing, “Did you know? Why didn’t you tell me so I could look good to meet _Jeffrey Jung_?!”

“I didn’t know!” You whisper back, mentally scanning back through your various correspondences and coming up with nothing. “It wasn’t in any of your emails, so I can see you didn’t, either!”

“Oh my god,” he moans. “We’re done for.”

“Thank you all for being here,” Max greets the entire group once you’ve all settled in. “We’ll cut to the chase so we can enjoy our dinners after in peace. With the impending release of _Wake Me Before You’re Gone_ in three weeks, we have a unique opportunity to boost the advancement of all our clients.”

Johnny arranges some notecards in front of him, then clears his throat, “Being in a fully public relationship with Ms. Shon will allow Mr. Jung to increase the length of exposure _sunshine in the moonlight_ has in the forefront of people’s minds. And of course, it is expected that Double Js will flock to the movie theater in droves to spot his cameo.”

Wendy and Jaehyun smile at each other, and it all comes together for you when you spot Lia’s agent, Yeji, at the other end of the table. Of course this is what this is.

She is in tune with both Johnny and Max as she reads off of something on her phone,

“Mr. Hong brings the crossover appeal, a different demographic of fans who might’ve not otherwise checked out the movie. Having Ms. Choi around simply boosts his public recognition, as it has been doing for the past six months.”

You’re annoyed that you and Ten have been left out of negotiations like this but there’s nothing you can do now.You’re just vehicles to aid this parasitism, this grotesque back and forth between the big power players of two different industries.

“Right,” Max appears immensely pleased with himself, smug smirk pasted on as he takes a sip of his wine. “America loves fresh, young couples more than anything right now, they’ll eat the four of you right up.”

“The four of us?” Lia pipes up, and you’re glad she did because you were caught off guard by that phrase, too.

“Yes, of course,” Yeji nods in affirmation. “You and Ms. Shon are the billed co-stars of _Wake Me Up._ What better way to promote the film than having the four of you out in LA, all cozied up? Dinners, hockey games, the premiere in two weeks, all perfect opportunities to show yourselves off.”

“We’ll hash out the details for you with your individual teams, but you’re all young and in love, so I can’t imagine it’ll be too hard for you, right?”

Leave it to Max Shim to purposefully leave out the details of a self-orchestrated fake relationship. But you suppose Josh and Lia’s status is on a need to know basis.

But it’s more than that. Yes, you told Mark in your own blasé way that you and Josh will happen when it happens, but you hadn’t been anticipating this. Another three weeks, basically another month at least? And then all the international press tours and premieres? You’re patient, but the stitches are starting to rip for you.

Especially with the way Lia clearly is so thrilled by the idea of spending time with both her ‘boyfriend’ and her best friend. With the way Josh isn’t even trying to glance over, to offer some sort of reassurance. With the way Jaehyun raises his eyebrows at you in a _would you look at this?_ kind of way. With the way Wendy is as displeased as you are, teeth silently gritting together.

“They floated the idea by me a couple times but I guess Josh decided to do this on his own,” Ten mutters lowly as soon as people start to eat, put off by all of this as much as you are.

That is news to you, not once had Joshua even mentioned this sort of thing, not even in passing.You thought he’d trust you enough to at least discuss the pros and cons first.

“He… what?”

“Yeah, I am just as in the dark about this as you are,” Ten stabs a piece of chicken on his fork, then sighs as his tone inches back from how dark it was. “But in the scheme of things, this isn’t so bad.”

“Mmm no,” you admit, because orchestrating fake dates for Instagram is one of the things you’re best at. “But you know the saying.”

Ten laughs as he clinks his wine glass with yours but you’re decidedly not laughing when he declares,

“There’s always the calm before explosive diarrhea.”

—

“You’re in a mood,” Joshua points out as soon as the two of you are out of the car, the oppressive heat of Runyon Canyon already beating down on you.

He’s already forgone a shirt, a choice that really shouldn’t affect you anymore. You put your sunglasses on so it’s not as easy for him to read your eyes.

“What? No, I’m not.”

“You didn’t say a word in the car and you were glaring daggers,” he leans in over you, propping himself up on one elbow so he can mock-shiver. “I could practically _feel_ them.”

“Is there a problem?”

The two of you hadn’t even discussed this newly-formed love square since Max Shim had announced it at dinner the other night. He’d only gone in guns-blazing as you and Ten planned coffee dates and hiking excursions.

“I should be asking you that,” he retorts. “Are you really that upset about a few more weeks with Lia?”

And it’s exactly that sort of question that makes you go, “I, ugh, it’s not the weeks, per se. I mean, how would you feel if I had another boyfriend!”

In the two years that you’ve worked for him, more specifically, the two years that you’ve liked Joshua, you’ve never dated anyone else, for obvious reasons. You’ve never actually spent much time contemplating what sort of reaction you could garner out of Josh if he were to compete with someone else for your affections. Maybe it’d finally force him to do something, for him to break out his guitar and send you your favorite sunflowers and actually let you bloom in the sun.

“Well first off, I’m not your boyfriend. But you’d never do that to me.”

He bends over to kiss you for just a second once he sees that everyone else is still out of sight in the car, and does an absolutely piss-poor job noticing how tense you get. _I’m not your boyfriend._

Thank you. For the reminder.

“Anyways, another month really is nothing. We’ll do these dates, which you’re so good at, and the premiere will be a smash,” Joshua says as he alluringly runs his fingers through his hair before fitting his baseball cap back on, but his compliment can’t improve your officially soured mood. “I’ll finally be seen as too lowly for Lia, and we’ll go our mutual ways so she can date an A-lister. I’m just some guy on the Kings and I’m confident enough to admit that I’m not at that level.”

“Wowwww, huge admission from LA’s darling,” you deadpan sarcastically, nose wrinkling at the dregs of cockiness he usually keeps hidden so well.

Joshua can sense you’re getting irritated, so he lays the sweet talk on thick, “You know she doesn’t compare to you in any way.”

You smile under false pretenses, but that’s probably the worst thing he could say. Lia, you have to admit, is funny and charming and beautiful and if you ran in the same circles, you would’ve wanted to hang out with her in some capacity. You know his feelings are only for you, but she deserves more than that.

“Ms. Choi!” You call, and Josh’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. You wait a second, another, enough time to get him starting to sweat, and then you continue, “Come here so I can get a picture of you two.”

“You’ll pay for that later,” he growls under his breath, clearly intending to be seductive in some way. You just brush him away from you so you can capture a candid shot of Lia handing him a water bottle.

“How long have you two been together?”

You legitimately choke on your own breath when you see Jaehyun there, half because of the wording of his question and half because he has also forgotten his shirt in the car. His low-slung gym shorts, Dodgers cap, and scrap of yellow something around his wrist does not qualify as an outfit. What is with these men?!

“Excuse me, what?”

Jaehyun hands you a water bottle, but seems to think your return query is because you hadn’t heard him, not because you think he’s somehow picked up on any other vibes Josh had given off,

“Like, how long have you been Josh’s social media person? You seem close.”

“This is my second season with the team.” You can still remember your first day with Josh, how his pretty smile had healed your affected heart up so nicely in an instant.

“But you’ve been here for longer than that, right?” He thinks for a bit, “You said five years, right?”

“Yeah, you remembered?” You can’t but smile, in the kind of way that your cheeks hurt a little bit, and it’s not because of the sunburn. He is brighter than the sun, anyways. “I did an internship with the Dodgers in college, and my first job was with Tiffany Hwang of the Strikers. I worked with Kyle Kuzma for a year, which was really fun, then a very short stint with CY Park before he was traded.”

You mention that last bit as quickly as you can but Jaehyun picks up on it, and it is only then that you remember he’s a hockey fan who would know about him.

“Wait, CY Park as in Chanyeol Park? He’s on the Islanders now, I remember being stoked when he was traded from the Kings.”

“Yup.”

That is all you say, because you can’t exactly say what you want to.

Something like, _Yes, CY Park as in Chanyeol Park, as in your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, as in the same guy I liked that my cousin dated, even though she knew I liked him. But you probably don’t know that, especially not that last bit, because you’re still good and trusting and she would never tell you something like that._

“That’s so cool,” he sighs dreamily. You have to remind yourself that he self-admittedly still gets starstruck, and then you have to remind yourself that you can’t find it cute.

“I guess,” you shrug, thankful that your bad memories of the fiasco with CY don’t really affect you anymore. “Anyways, I knew Ten through connections, so it was easy enough to get the job with Josh once he was called up to the main team.”

And by that you mean, _it was easy enough to fall for Josh after CY and Wendy ripped my heart out like that._ _He was there and so handsome and so nice that you really felt like it was fate that you had met him._

“I’m glad you knew Ten through connections too, because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you,” Jaehyun muses lightly, teasingly, in a way that scatters the blush in an arc across your cheekbones. The gratitude is simmering in your heart as well, for him, for what exactly, you don’t know.

You wave him off as you reach for your AirPods, wanting to get this hike on the road so you can get home to a bath faster.

“Wait,” he notices what you’re doing and asks, “aren’t you coming on the hike with us?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I’m coming on the hike,” you answer, glancing past him at Josh and Lia holding hands as they make their way up the path, at Wendy and her manager Joy looking at something on her phone. “ But I don’t have anyone to be in a loving relationship with, so I get the honor of listening to music while you guys talk.”

You don’t even get Ten or Mark to walk with. It’s just you, like it’s always been.

He chortles at your sudden, bleak comment, not understanding the context. Then he cranes his neck to see your phone, “What are you listening to then?”

“Rap. You know, Lil Baby, Future, things of that nature,” you say the last part in this mock British accent, thinking that Jaehyun’s head is firmly ensconced in the pop world. “I doubt you know or even care to know.”

“Jeff!” Wendy’s voice rings out from up the trail.

“Coming!” He calls back, stumbling a bit as he tries to run up the canyon backwards to prolong his conversation with you. “Look up Shut Up by DaBaby if you’re looking for something new. But I also know a different song you could listen to!”

You can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of you, clear and genuine, because _of course_ Jaehyun secretly likes the same music you do. You lift your phone up to snap an image of him, and he sticks his tongue out at precisely the moment you capture the picture.

“Stop self promoting!” You shout at him, shaking your head in disbelief at how cheeky he is.

“Stop acting like you don’t want to listen to my music! You can’t fight the Jaehyun!”

The desert dust clogs itself into your throat as he turns around to sprint up to his date.

It’s not the blustery wind or the scorching sun that pricks tears into the corners of your eye. It’s a nanodrop of nostalgia, of a hurried escape, of a park swing in the dark of night. Of a little laugh and skinned knees and a funny friend with a polaroid camera. Of a shared cupcake, one that was more than fifty percent yours, of your protests otherwise, of a certain strong declaration.

_You can’t fight me!_

Later, Mark sends you the E!news post, then a post from Wendy. The first reads,

> **@enews:** _EXCLUSIVE: A foursome we’re envious of everyone in. Wendy Shon and Jeffrey Jung were seen hiking Runyon Canyon with the ever lovable Joshua Hong and Lia Choi. Hey! Notice us! We just want to be best friends, too. Click the link in our bio to find out just how much fun these two couples had._

The comments are overflowing with dual heads of delight and expected jealousy, and this is the first time you don’t feel flattered by the reception of your work. This is the first time you feel like you’re digging your claws into something that shouldn’t be touched, like you shouldn’t be playing a role in Jaehyun’s relationship like you are.

He’s clearly happy with your cousin, no matter what you think of her, and it’s not your place to have any sort of opinion about it. Especially when you see what she’s put up on her profile.

> **@monday_tuesday_wendy:** had an unbeleafable time w this one today **@jeffjung**

When you look at the picture of Jaehyun — the same one you’d taken yourself and sent over to her — in front of the trees in his shirtless glory, dimples flashing, pink tongue out, you can’t help but think of a certain person.

You’ve only felt this kind of earnest energy, these pure intentions, from one boy, one that you knew a long time ago.

—

You’d given Mark your plus one to the _Wake Me Before You’re Gone_ premiere, but you’d told him it was under the condition that he be on his best behavior.

Despite that, you’re not surprised when Mark hits his head on the car door once he sees who’s waiting inside with you, “Oh, oh my god.”

“Mark,” you don’t have look up to know his open mouth must be a mile deep. “Please control yourself!”

He grabs the collar of your practical navy sheath dress and practically drags you out of the window so he can whisper in your ear, “Y/n, my best friend, can you give me a minute to freak out. A minute! Thirty seconds, anything.”

“Don’t ask me, ask him,” you mutter darkly so your companion doesn’t overhear.

There’s a carefree, “Ask me what?” and Mark physically pushes you to the side so he can peer inside the car.

If you had access to a choir and a fog machine, you could’ve put together a rendition of Heaven’s angels that would’ve won you an Oscar. But, really, it’s Jaehyun doing all the work in his pastel pink suit jacket, lilac tresses neatly slicked back, small golden leaf pinned in his earlobe. Simply observing him lounging there in the backseat of your car, inviting smile on his face, you almost dissolve into the seat in some sort of impaired attraction, the same way you had when your company car had rolled to a stop in front of his fancy downtown townhouse.

Why had Johnny decided to take a route to the premiere that took him directly through traffic, you don’t know, but you suppose you owe him a debt of gratitude for allowing you this vision.

“Jeffrey, this is Mark. _The_ Mark….” you tilt your head pointedly to your friend, trying to subtly recall the dozens of stories Jaehyun had managed to pry out of you on your way to and from dates. The recollection of your time at UCLA had been edited, of course, all mentions of Wendy removed for your sanity’s sake, but Jaehyun is well aware of who Mark is.

His face splits into this ear-to-ear grin, and he holds out his hand to smack Mark’s, “What’s up man, call me Jaehyun.”

You bend towards him, a foolish move that douses you with his exhilarating presence, all frosted over with his familiar Chanel, and whisper, “He wants to know if he can have a minute to fanboy over you.”

Jaehyun’s lips form a round o, and then his eyes disappear in mirth as he laughs,“You can fanboy over me for the rest of your life if you want, I don’t care.”

Mark heaves himself into the car, throwing himself in the middle of the backseat between you and Jaehyun, and though you roll your eyes, his excitement is endearing to you. Even more so is the way Jaehyun’s going along with it.

As the car starts up again, you take out your phone, making a big deal out of the action, “I’ll set a timer. Go.”

And Mark takes off, flows of fury activated,

“Okay, holy shit I can’t believe I’m in the car with _the_ Jeff-no, Jaehyun Jung. I can’t believe it, me, Mark Lee, here in the car with you. You’re pulling off that pink so well I can’t even _oh my gOD_ my Soundcloud friends are never going to let me live this down but I don’t care it’s fucking Jaehyun Jung. I have seriously listened to your song like. I don’t know. Ten thousand times. No, a hundred thousand times! Okay, I’m done haha.”

Mark’s chest is heaving with effort by the time his impassioned monologue has come to a close, and the brightness in Jaehyun’s face then could’ve honestly provided power to a thousand environmentally-unconscious LA homes.

“You’ve got twelve seconds left,” you deadpan, just to nag at him a little for making you sit through this, but Mark is fully satisfied.

“I’m good.”

“Wait, you’re supposedly her best friend but have you gotten her to listen to _sunshine_ with you one of those hundred thousand times?” Jaehyun gasps dramatically, like Mark has committed a personal misdeed against him, and he smirks at you over Mark’s head.

“Don’t be mad at me, it’s not for lack of trying!” Mark whines to the other man, before shaking you back and forth by your shoulders like a rag doll. “Listen to it, y/n, I can’t let you ruin this for me!”

“I’m kidding, she should listen to it only when she wants to,” Jaehyun muses softly, picking up the way you and Mark easily play with each other. “Now I see why you two are friends.”

You throw your arm around Mark, ruffling his hair until he starts to squeal in protest, “Friends til the sparkly end, right Mark?”

Jaehyun stares at you then, the car falling into a pointed second of silence, his eyes mapping out a constellation of something you can’t quite make out on your face as he asks,

“Wait, what did you say?”

“Friends to the sparkly end,” Mark chimes in. “It means like, we’ll be friends until we die and become stars. Then we’ll be all sparkly together up in heaven.”

You’d taught him that phrase over beers during orientation week freshman year, just a silly thing you’d once come up with in the throes of your childhood loneliness at home. But he’d loved it and used it throughout the years of your friendship and now is apparently teaching it to Jaehyun.

“I wish I had someone like that,” Jaehyun admits, more to the window than to either you or Mark.

“Hmm?”

“I mean I’m friends with Johnny, and with the people on my team, but I haven’t spoken to anyone from my hometown in a long time,” there they go again, his teeth gnawing on his lip in anxiety as he loses himself in the memories. “My college girlfriend broke up with me when I moved to LA. I don’t think I speak to any other friends from college except this kid Lucas, who only is in the States every once in a while.”

On this, you can relate, really, you can. You’re lucky to have Mark now, to have Ten and Josh and Tae, but until you got to UCLA, you were decidedly friendless. Walking to high school and back alone, no date to the prom, no one to hang out with on the weekends. You suppose that is why it’s hard for you to let people in now, why you revert back to business you as often as you do. Because you can’t deal with that crushing disappointment any more.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Mark is stunned, his outgoing mind not truly wrapping around what Jaehyun’s saying. “That’s so sad.”

“Yeah, I know,” the despondency radiating from Jaehyun is just bringing it all back, the loneliness, the deep desire for one hand of friendship to extend out to you. “The price of fame, I guess. I guess I expected the opposite, for them to be clamoring for perks or side effects of whatever celebrity, if I can use that word, that I have. But no, they, they kind of just faded away.”

This is what’s truly unfair.

You can sort of understand why no one ever flocked to you in your youth, you were too shy and too closed off, not willing to give up anything about yourself to anyone else. But it’s so obvious that Jaehyun is the kind of person who’d be so open, who’d be friendly and earnest and the perfect addition to any friend group. They should’ve wanted him around forever.

They’re all jealous, you decide, they have to be. You don’t know who _they_ exactly are, but they’re in the wrong.

“He’s in the bro squad, y/n,” Mark declares without hesitation. “I’m amending the Constitution right now. He has to be!”

“The… bro squad?” Jaehyun looks to you for clarification, and you don’t know why you so deeply blush when you meet his eyes.

“Erm, it’s me and Mark’s chat name. Not! My idea, I’d like to make that clear,” you stutter. “But, yes, go ahead.”

Mark is overjoyed with happiness at you giving him permission to add Jaehyun into a group chat, and even though he’s doing his best to hide it, Jaehyun can’t stop glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

You want to know if he’d laugh at the funny memes Mark sends you, or if he’d be down to discuss the latest episodes of whatever dating show is recently out on Hulu. Mark had been firmly against doing any of this with Josh after you’d suggested it once — only sparingly using the chat group comprised of him, you, Ten, and Josh — and this is such a difference.

“This is my number,” Mark types out his digits into Jaehyun’s phone book, then snaps a picture of himself to add in too. “Call me whenever you’re feeling lonely and we’ll watch hockey or something.”

“You like hockey, too?”

“Like hockey?,” Mark scoffs, before pretending to stickhandle with an invisible hockey stick. “I’m from Canada! It’s in my blood.”

“Yes, my brother!” Jaehyun practically bellows, the two of them leaping at each other in the bro-iest of manly bro hugs, even in the tiny backseat of the car.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” you tease, getting out of the car when you notice it’s rolled into the reserved drop-off lot for celebrity attendees.

You can’t put a finger on it, why it makes you so happy to see Jaehyun and Mark getting along, but the breathtaking smile he gives you once he’s sidled up to where you’re loitering must be at least half of it.

“What a funny kid,” he murmurs, eyes following Mark as he skips along to the entrance of the red carpet. “I like him.”

“Liked him enough to let him call you Jaehyun, huh?” You point out softly, nudging your elbow into his, the silk of his jacket dancing across your skin in a cool foxtrot.

It was obvious enough for you to spot just how easily Jaehyun had allowed Mark to call him by his given name, compounded even further by the fact that your cousin still calls him Jeffrey. After what he’d revealed about his past in the car, how he’d been a member of the lonely hearts club in more ways than one, you want this to work out for him.

Jaehyun bends at the waist, moving his face forward so it’s practically level with yours, allowing him unadulterated access to gaze at you in that particular way that he does. Then, he says,

“I felt like I knew him, all because of you. So, thank you.”

You’re welcome, you’re welcome, he is so, so welcome. You’d introduce each and every one of the people you hold dear to him if only to make him happy like this once again.

“Y/n!” Joshua is gesturing you over from behind this flamboyant set of artificial plants, white bow tie slightly askew, and you wave at him to let him know you’re coming.

“Sorry!” You tap Jaehyun on the arm in goodbye, capturing one last snapshot of him like this. “See you inside!”

You wait for him to turn on his heel and catch up to Mark, before you allow yourself to creep over to where Joshua had been before. You can’t see him from where you are, the foliage is really massive to an unnecessary degree, but then an arm snatches you out of nowhere.

Before you know it, Joshua has you pressed up against the wall of the theatre and is kissing you, mouth hot and open. It takes you a second to register what’s actually going on, and you melt into his arms out of habit. You allow him to kiss you a few more times, his hands everywhere from your hair to your waist with no lull in the action, but when he makes his way down to kiss your neck, you push at his chest, holding him out away from your body.

“What are you doing?” You question him sternly, taking a moment to glance down either side of you, relieved to find no one else around. You like kissing him, you do, and kissing him in public is nice for once, but this doesn’t feel right.

“I missed you,” he attempts another kiss, but you hold your arm out steady, earning you a frustrated pout. “Didn’t you miss me?”

“Yeah, but Josh, we’ll get caught, don’t you think?!” You partially whisper, partially yell, so he knows just how serious you are. You cannot get caught fooling around at an event like this. You would’ve preferred showing up on his arm, but standing at a professional distance away would be better than this.

“Doesn’t matter,” he dismisses you as he bends down, much in the same manner as Jaehyun had just done. But you are not a fraction of a percent as enchanted now as you were then, because instead of intoxicating Chanel, you pick out the eau of Jack Daniel’s.

“Joshua Hong,” you scold, using his full name. “Are you drunk already?”

“Maybe,” he tries to sidestep your inquiry, but your fiery glare sends him unraveling in a second. “Okay fine, we only had practice this morning so Petey and Zhong came over to pregame with me.”

Ugh, you can’t count the number of times Ten has warned Josh not to go overboard with the off-day drinking, especially after he had shown up late to a practice last year and nearly got into a screaming match with Coach McLellan because of it. Never mind the fact that Chenle is only a rookie and should not be indulging in these habits because of Josh.

“For the love of god,” you smack him in the chest once, and then another time to get it through him. “Pull yourself together man! At least try to look sober so I can have something good to post tonight!”

“Wait, are you mad?” Joshua asks you dumbly, like you’d just lightly smacked him and raised your voice in some attempt at fun.

“No,” you grit out from between your clenched jaw, knowing that you can’t provoke a fight by admitting your true feelings. “But don’t start. I’ll see you on the carpet.”

You leave him there to take your place among the cameras, where you belong.

You get the shots you need while he walks the red carpet, because apparently Josh is as professional at acting as he is at hockey. But you don’t let him walk next to you into the theater, and you certainly don’t sit next to him. He doesn’t get a reward after whatever the fuck that was outside by the plants.

The movie is a cute little chick flick, something that the greater Netflix community will eat up when it’s officially released. You’ll probably watch it again with Mark after a bottle of wine or two, and idly wonder if Jaehyun would be interested in joining in on something like that. He’s probably the kind of loyal boyfriend that would want to watch his girlfriend’s movie as many times as he can in support. Must be nice.

You spend an embarrassing amount of time at the after party trying to find Jaehyun. It’s not until when Lana Condor, in a loofah of a pink dress, moves to her left that you spot him, alone at a table by the bar.

You saunter over, tequila sunrise in hand, and plop right down on the chair next to him.

You can see Wendy gallivanting across the way with Lia, the two of them in twin yellow tulle gowns, a color that sparks some recollection in your mind. You truly wonder if this all-encompassing song was written about your cousin, and you finally feel comfortable enough with the singer to ask him about it straight up.

“Soooooo,” you drag out the o in _so_ , getting him to lean forward in anticipation. Then you drop the bomb, “is your girlfriend the mysterious girl with the yellow ribbon?”

The corner of Jaehyun’s mouth quirks, like he hadn’t been expecting that, and he takes a long drink of whiskey. “She’s not my girlfriend, I told you that we were just dating. But you know about that?”

 _About that_ means you know about the mysterious girl from his past, which you do.

“I know enough, but I must confess, Mark was right. I still haven’t listened to the whole thing.”

“Oof,” he lets out a deep breath as he mimics a knife going in his chest. And then he hams up the worst cockney accent you’ve ever heard. “Riiight, Lil Baby, Future, things of that nature.”

“Hey!” You chide him as he makes fun of you openly, recalling exactly what you said to him that day at Runyon. “That’s not funny.”

“Yes, it totally is,” he manages to get out between full peals of his enchanting laughter. He sobers up at a pace so fast it gives you comprehension whiplash. “I guess there’s always a chance it could be her, there’s this one picture of her that makes me think it is, but I… I’m not sure.”

You’ve been jealous of your cousin for many different things over the years, but his gaze on her right now, equal parts convinced and unsure, is perhaps the one thing of hers you’ve coveted the most.

“What is the picture?”

“Ah, I don’t have it on this phone, it’s on my computer at home. She’s in this yellow dress, some kind of pattern on it.” He closes his eyes, like he can picture it, and there’s something you can picture too.

You and Wendy, mouths set together in identical frowns, on the step of your aunt and uncle’s house. Wendy in this pink dress, covered in roses, and you in the same dress, only it’s in yellow. And covered in dandelions.

“She probably stole it from me,” you rumble to yourself in misplaced frustration. That had been your favorite dress!

Jaehyun’s eyes go from hazy to searing in a flash, yanking your heart from your chest straight into the trench of your throat at the intensity of his stare as he chokes out,

“What?”

“Ah, nothing,” you quickly move past your old family gripes, trying to flush his reaction out of your mind as fast as you can. “Are you having fun tonight?”

His fingers clench around his glass once more, then he relaxes, easy-going Jaehyun again, “A little out of my depth. That was my first red carpet, you know.”

“Oh, what! Jaehyun, congratulations.”

“It’s no big deal,” he shrugs, but the color is already dotting his cheeks, cherry tomatoes sprouting on his fair skin. “By the way, are you coming to this dinner thing that I have scheduled this weekend?”

“Ah, I’m away for the weekend,” you grimace, thinking of the scheduled event in your phone you’d been trying to avoid thinking of. “Family thing.”

Truthfully, you have no idea what he has planned because you know his girlfriend, er—date will also be out of town. No time to go on a planned date when there’s scheduled torture to be had, eh?

“Hey perfect timing,” Ten collapses into the last empty seat at the table, wiping some errant sweat away from his forehead. “Is Josh going home with you for that?”

And truthfully, again, you’re not even sure if Josh knows you’re going away this weekend.

“No, why?”

Ten is scrolling through both his phones at the same time, and this man clearly needs a drink. “Oh, just a transaction on his account I can’t figure out, but he’s been helping Zhong with some of his flights so it’s probably that. No worries.”

You shrug, because that’s not something unusual for Joshua to be doing, but Ten really looks stressed out of his mind. Jaehyun must pick up on the same vibes that Ten’s giving off, because you both look at each other, then glance at the bar. Only to be met with the visual of Joshua, tie tied around his head, double fisting two bottles of champagne as he dances with some guys you don’t recognize. Great.

“Should he be doing that?” Jaehyun muses, entertained.

“Oh god, no,” Ten groans, reaching over to finish the last dregs of tequila in your cup before he yanks you up from the table. “Let’s go, y/n.”

“I’m sorry, Jaehyun,” it’s really unfair that this is the second time you have to apologize to him tonight, but this is just another duty of yours. “Have fun this weekend, I’ll see you soon!”

You reach your inebriated crush first, and manage to get one of his arms around you before he completely collapses against the bar.

“Come on, big boy,” you wheeze as you heft his large frame around yours. “Let’s get you home.”

“You always got me,” Joshua slurs, head lolling against your shoulder. “And I love you for that.”

You freeze.

This is the first time Joshua has said those words to you, a scenario you’ve imagined a thousand times every which way possible. This is the one incident you haven’t imagined a response for. You can’t deny the way the affection instantly brews in your chest, as crisp and as strong as it was the first day you ever found yourself caring for him. A dash of longing follows, then one thimbleful of the true love you know you hold for him. But you also can’t deny the way the panic swirls in immediately after, frothing and too hot and way too much for you.

In the latte of you, you feel as if you’re burning up from the inside, completely and with no chance of salvaging it at all.

So, you stay silent.

—

You call upon whatever higher powers are out there to lend you some kind of strength as you approach the house. It never gets easier, coming here.

You don’t have to ring the doorbell, because the front door is wide open, and you’re completely uncovered with nowhere to hide when you walk up the steps.

A familiar face pushes open the glass storm door and greets you, “Y/n! Hi!”

She’s happy enough to see you, hug quite warm as you congratulate her. “Happy anniversary, Aunt Clara.”

You pass off a bouquet of lilies that you’d picked up on your way out of the city, and she’s pleased as pie with them. “Oh, you remembered! These are so lovely, thank you, y/n.”

“I’m so glad you were able to make it, y/n,” your uncle’s voice is gruffer than you recall, his hair grayer than before as well, but his hug is what you’ve missed the most, strong and comforting.

“Thanks Uncle Charlie, it’s good to see you. I brought you your favorite carrot cake from Magnolia.”

You pass off the white box into his arms, and you already feel forced to awkwardly apologize to your relatives,

“Sorry I wasn’t able to to cook anything, Aunt Clara, I was intending to. But there was a disaster in the office today, so I had to go in, and was late getting on the road. Then I hit all of the rush hour traffic possible. But I’m here.”

Their anniversary party was intended to be a potluck, but one of Ten’s other accounts had exploded with some kind of nude picture scandal and you’d had to go in to help him clean up the mess. You were not trying to cook chili after hours of scrolling through unwanted dick pics, even if you did have the time.

“You brought cake and flowers, that’s more than enough for us, honey. We really just wanted you here. We haven’t seen you in a while,” Uncle Charlie tries to hide the concern in his eyes, but you can read it all in his face.

They’ve never really deserved the way you’ve acted towards them, not really. The guilt starts to seep in, way too early for you to make it through the night unscathed.

“I know, I’m sorry about that. Been very busy with work, as you can probably tell.”

“Come in, come in. It’s getting cold outside,” Aunt Clara brings you into the house, and you leave your stilettos by the door. Amongst all of the sneakers and other comfortable shoes, they make a funny impression.

“You’re still in your work clothes, y/n, you must be so uncomfortable,” and she’s right, you can barely bend over with how tight your pants are. “Why don’t you go to your old room and change? I think we still have some of your clothes here.”

You hadn’t really gone back home during any of the breaks at UCLA besides a few evening dinners here and there. So whatever you left in your room that August you assumed had been thrown away. But your aunt and uncle had kept these little bits of you for safekeeping, they still call your room your room. God, it’s only now that you can see how you’ve fucked this up.

“Sure,” you mumble, voice watery. “I’ll show my face at the party first so no one thinks I’m dead.”

The sounds of the party echo from inside and you know you have to prepare yourself for the influx of personal questions you’ll undoubtedly receive from your relatives’ friends. It’d probably be worse for you not to show your face first, you don’t want the rumor mill to pop up here in suburbia.

“Listen, before you go in—,” Aunt Clara starts, but it’s too late.

“Y/n.”

“Mother. Hello.”

There’s no way for you to hide the grimace. You’d assumed she wouldn't even attempt to show her face here. 

As a child, you used to look at old pictures of your mother and try to pick out every similar detail between you and her, but now you can’t even be bothered to try. You’d rather look like roadkill than look like her.

The impasse has begun, the rocky standoff between the past queen of the household and her daughter, who’s grown a steely spine ten times over in the years since her reign. You stare at your mother icily, daring her to say something or do something that will set off a fight. You hope she doesn’t, because it will surely surpass the firepower of the great high school graduation blowout.

“Auntie, you’re here! I’m so glad you and Uncle weren’t stranded in Switzerland,” Wendy flounces into the foyer and hugs your mother tightly, like you two were offspring switched at birth. This only serves to incite your ire at her, though it’d be inappropriate for you to unleash it at her in her own home. She hands your mother a slip of paper, and once she notices you standing there, greets you in a blasé manner,“Oh, hi, y/n. Here you go.”

But you don’t give a shit about whatever she’s passing out because you finally pick up on her comment.

“Switzerland, huh?”

“Baby, who are you talking to?” You recognize that voice, and here your father comes. “Oh, y/n.”

“Hello, father,” you dismiss him without a care, a puny little character in your life who never did anything in your defense or best interest. You focus back in on your mother,“You know, it would’ve been nice for you to let me know that you had left Thailand, so I didn’t try calling your villa a thousand times a day and get no response.”

This is how it’s always been, they’re in one place and expect you to call, and you do because even though you hate them you’re still their daughter. Then the phone calls stop connecting, and you continue to call until you’re sick with worry, until you find out through the grapevine they’re halfway across the world. It’s a sick song and dance that you’d been okay with, never once truly called them out on, but to find out that Wendy, _Wendy!_ knew where they were before you, is not okay.

Your mother is caught off guard, fumbling to come up with a functional excuse in the meager time you provide her, “Service was spotty and…”

“You decided on a whim and were in transit for a lot of the time, I get it,” you parrot back one of their previous excuses to you word for word, but you’re not just going to take it lying down. “But wifi and international data are things that exist now. I’m not ten anymore, you can respond to my messages for free.”

“Y/n, honey…” your father wheedles, but you blow right past him.

“I’m fine, I am finishing up my second season working with Joshua Hong. I’m even working on projects with my cousin now, imagine that,” you inform them of everything they’ve missed in your recent life in a cheerily false voice, the one good thing LA’s lent itself to. “I moved into a new place a few months ago so Mark could get his own apartment. I’m thinking about adopting a fish, since I, you know, live alone. I’m existing. I’m fine. And I’m here for Aunt Clara and Uncle Charlie, so I’d like to hear about Switzerland some other time.”

With practiced poise, you glide past the nucleus of family you don’t particularly wish to claim, and continue on into the house, bypassing the bustling living room entirely. You haven’t been back in this house for almost ten years, but you still know where to go, through the back hallway and two doors down to your right.

You let out a shuddering breath once the door is safely closed behind you, turning to your left so you don’t have to watch the tears well up in your eyes in the mirror across the way.

It’s not fair that they can still hurt you this way, it’s been well over a decade since they had simultaneous mid life crises and decided to travel the world, since they unceremoniously decided to dump you on your aunt and uncle’s doorstep so they could do so uninhibited. Clara and Charlie tried their best, and you’re grateful to them for that, but Wendy was always around, and so were your crippling feelings of guilt and… ugh.

You push your abandoned clothes around on their hangers with way more force than is necessary. You’re allowing yourself this emotional reaction while you’re hidden away, so that you can walk back out there and have a perfectly pleasant evening to the best of your capabilities. One drop of calming aura in the chaos of it all is finding your old favorite sweatshirt, just this navy cotton thing with a single sunflower embroidered on the breast pocket.

You instantly shed your blazer and blouse, eager to get into your familiarly comforting clothes. When you have the sweatshirt halfway over your head, your foot comes into contact with something that’s decidedly not floor, and you stumble a bit as you try to figure out what it is. You push the garment over your shoulders, then bend down to look.

“What the fuck is this?” You mutter, realizing it’s whatever Wendy handed to you when you first walked in, tossed aside during your costume change. But once you see it, take the image on the piece of paper in fully, that little molecule of deja vu explodes into a deluge.

The itchiness is back, bringing with it this paralyzing, frantic hitch of your breath as you fumble for your phone. This is a terrifying onslaught of emotion, between your parents, and now this, you won’t be surprised if you pass out here in the middle of the floor. You can’t hit the right letters on your screen, having to type and re-type and re-type your search query into YouTube until you get something that’s remotely close to what you want.

The video blasts out into the room, but you don’t even bother to adjust the volume.

“We have the album cover here,” Jimmy Fallon is holding up a larger version of the piece of paper in your hand, rotating it back and forth so his audience can see it. “You were nice enough to let us debut it here on my show.”

“Yes, haha,” Jaehyun laughs easily, putting an arm up on blue chair beside him. “This is the album cover.”

“Everyone’s been dying to know who this girl is that you’ve been singing about. Is this her? With you?” Jimmy points to a young girl’s turned back, then to a boy’s, right next to hers.

“That’s us,” Jaehyun sighs dreamily, enraptured by his own album cover. “I took this picture with a Polaroid camera at the time, and we digitally scanned it to make the cover. I’m pretty sure she has the front facing version of it.”

“So, this is like a Craigslist missed connection,” Jimmy offers, earning a short laugh from the audience with the weak joke.

“I mean, you don’t have to put it that way,” if Jaehyun is irked, he doesn’t show it in the video, only continuing to grin in his usual pleasant way.

“What’d you call it then?”

“Modern day Cinderella?”

You switch the video off before it can go any further.

Your fist is trembling at a million miles per hour, an earthquake of remembrance and feeling, and you slowly unfurl your fingers to re-reveal the piece of paper you’d gotten from Wendy.

It’s a tad fuzzy, because she’s printed it off of Google, but the image is unmistakeable. It’s of the backs of two kids, one boy and one girl, just as you spotted in Jimmy’s video. The boy has his arm around the girl’s shoulders, a scrap of yellow ribbon tied around his wrist there. The girl has this bright yellow bow tied into her ponytail, hair spilling down her small neck, and she’s wearing this dress spun out of pure sunshine, visible even in the dark lighting. A dress covered in a pattern of dandelions.

Then you’re tearing back to your closet, falling to your knees so you can rummage through the shoeboxes hidden away in the back corner. You comb through a box of saved seashells, then a box of your elementary school artwork, all the way down until you find a parchment paper covered box, with three little withered dandelions taped to the front of the lid.

“Y/n? Are you in here?” Someone’s calling you, but you can’t tear your eyes away from the lid coming upwards, from what you find on the inside of this box.

Sitting pristinely amongst a pillow of tissue paper and one rainbow of yellow silk is a glossy photo.

There you are, of course it’s you, with a cheery bow in your hair, and wearing your most cherished dress. You’re beaming, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen yourself look this happy, face rounded with baby fat and innocence and unravaged by the cruel passing of time.

“Y/n?” There’s a familiar hand on your shoulder, a ray of yellow encircling the wrist, and how is the feeling of the boy’s tiny hand on your thin shoulder so vivid, even after all this time?

Your eyes flick upwards and it’s Jaehyun, he’s here in your room at your aunt and uncle’s house.

You’re looking down again, and there’s the boy, the matching lemon ribbon looped around his wrist since he doesn’t have enough hair to tie it in. If you’re beaming, he’s incandescent, the crescent of his smile outshining the crescent of the moon in the deep background. His cheeks are fuller than yours with the heft of youth, unmistakeable dimples cratering into both sides of his mouth in a delightful manner.

You once thought to yourself that you wouldn’t have been able to forget someone like Jeffrey Jung. But he wasn’t Jeffrey Jung then, not Jaehyun Jung, not even Jaehyun, not really.

Jaehyun is there in your room, you’re the girl in the picture, and he’s the boy, and the only thing you manage to get out is hoarse and strangled with recognition.

“JJ?”

**tbc.**


	2. tempting tartness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more part after this woohoo! enjoy :)

Jaehyun sinks into the white comforter on your old bed, stunned into silence. It’s a good ten seconds before his voice fully cracks,

“How, how do you know… How do you know I used to go by JJ?”

It’s impossible for you to deny that it’s him now, and you’re beside yourself in simmering fury that you hadn’t put two in two together. It’s him, it’s him, he’s lost his baby fat and he’s grown up beautifully, but he is the boy in your photo.

He can’t see what’s in the box, only spots the paper crumpled in your hand, and he rubs the back of his neck in discomfort.

“Oh, were you looking at that? Ah, I’m so embarrassed, Wendy printed those out to promote the single. It’s my album cover.”

You can even remember what he’d been wearing on the first day you met him, this striped red and white rugby shirt and khaki shorts. Can remember how you thought he looked like a funny little grandpa.

“I, I said that my aunt told me not to talk to strangers, so I didn’t want to reveal what my name was,” your tongue is thick in your mouth with emotion, the words struggling to come out. “But you, you told me you didn’t care, and you said your name was JJ.”

“Y/n…” Jaehyun whispers, and he knows that you know that he knows.

“I, I think the girl, the yellow girl, t-the yellow ribbon girl. Is me. She’s me. Here.”

You pluck the photo out from inside the shoe box, passing it over to Jaehyun with the printed album cover. You can see the neatly folded yellow ribbon inside the bottom of the box, where you’d placed it after you’d gently taken it out of your hair that night.

He still wears his around his wrist.

“Oh my god. It’s you.”

And though the timbre of his voice is much, much lower, that musical quality of loveliness is still there, just like it had been when he warbled, _I’ll take one from behind and one from the front, so that together they make up the whole picture!_

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner,” you apologize hastily, because he’s clearly been searching for… you… this whole time, if his numerous interviews give you an indication.

“I think I knew it was you,” he confesses. “I wanted it to be you.”

Jaehyun is sitting on your bed in your old room and he is confessing something like this to you. How did you get here?!

“What?”

“I mean you were so, so familiar from the moment I met you. You did and said all these things that I was sure I’d seen before,” he wanders off, only to be drawn back in by your hands fidgeting, fingernail biting into the crease of your thumb. “Look, you’re doing it now.”

“Holy shit,” you curse under your breath, thinking of the way he gnaws at his lip, how he’d known to cross his heart with his thumb. You’d wanted it to be him, too.

“Wow, I can’t believe i actually figured this out,” he laughs in disbelief as he looks back and forth between the pictures, the world’s greatest mystery for him finally solved. “I’d seriously thought I’d go forever not remembering who this was. Sorry about that, by the way. I think I blacked out almost everything about that time.”

You only remember the important parts of that week, mostly him, only him. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, I sort of did too.”

“Are you okay, though?” Jaehyun suddenly switches topics out of nowhere, eyes furrowing in concern when he truly registers your crouched position on the ground. “I came looking for you because you were like, some goddess of fury out there.”

It’s an attempt at lightening the mood, but it only causes you to flop onto the ground, your hair fanning out in a halo on the carpet.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you mutter.

Jaehyun slides off the bed, collapsing in a heap next to you, turning his head so he can ask, “Long story?”

“Yeah,” you’re prepared to just leave it at that, but it spills out of you anyways like a proper toxic disaster. “Ah, you deserve at least the spark notes version. Which is, that when I was ten, my parents were bitten by the urge to travel the world. Why they decided to do so then, I still don’t know, especially after having a child, but I’ve learned never to think too deeply about it because I just end up getting hurt. Anyways, it would’ve been a burden to bring a ten year old with them, I guess, so I was dumped with my aunt and uncle and it’s sort of been that way ever since. That week I met you was my first week in LA.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he affirms, because you had felt comfortable enough to tell him as much.

“I always felt guilty, like I was a burden on Clara and Charlie, especially because Wendy was already starting to build her film career then. They were nice enough to me, but I was constantly by myself as they shuttled her to auditions and readings and it all made me feel like I wasn’t good worth any time or effort.”

It’s more than that, it was the raging jealousy and unwanted competition, all braided through with stiff lines of grief and confusion. Your aunt and uncle had done more than enough to give you a loving home, but they hadn’t been able to heal a hurt little girl.

“So I get it, what you went through. I know what it’s like to be alone in the world.”

In the vast ocean of your bedroom rug, Jaehyun’s hand finds yours, holding it tightly in comfort as he murmurs, “You should’ve come to Long Island with me. My mom would’ve loved you.”

You can’t dwell on the what if. You can’t.

You prop yourself up on your elbow to get a better look at him when you ask, “Is this weird, now that you’re dating Wendy?”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“You got famous off a song that describes just how much you miss this one particular girl from your youth, one that’s decidedly not her as much as she probably wanted it to be. It probably didn’t even cross her mind that the girl on the cover could’ve been me. I'm sure she thought your team came up with the cover instead of you just happening to have a saved Polaroid from the time. Can’t you see how weird that actually is?” You point out; you can’t imagine your cousin would be okay with dating someone who had dozens and dozens of gossip stories out about their infatuation with another woman, childhood crush or not.

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugs, not seeming to care about anyone else but you in the moment. “But what does that have to do with anything? It’s not like the song was about what’s going on in the present.”

“Are you happy? Dating her?” You question him bluntly, any sort of defense mechanism between the two of you torn away in your earnest revelations.

“She’s not my gir—,” Jaehyun starts, the same as always, and you cut him off.

“I get it, she’s not your girlfriend, but are you happy seeing her?”

You have to look away when he bites his lip in thought. “Yeah, I think so.”

This feels like CY Park all over again. It’s not CY Park because Wendy and Jaehyun are already dating and you’re not actually in love with him like you had been with CY but this somehow feels a tsunami’s worth of feelings worse. Mostly because now you can’t recall that week, that one perfect week of your life, without thinking of your cousin. And while you don’t hate her, not really, not truly, you don’t want her to take this from you too.

You can’t look at this as you, you have to compartmentalize it, put it in neat little blocks and become only y/n the businesswoman when you think of Jaehyun and the picture. He’s not your client, but what does it matter at this point?

Tentatively, you start with, “Then don’t you think it would be better for us to pretend this never existed?”

He sits up in a flash, nose nearly knocking into yours. “What? I’ve been looking for you, like, my whole adult life.”

Jaehyun’s face is set in firm denial, and while splinters of nausea stab their way into your heart, you barrel on ahead with your newly-formed idea.

“No, listen to me. Your song is wonderful, no doubt, and I swear I will listen to it soon. But an undeniable part of the appeal is that people still don’t know who this girl is.”

“I guess….”

“It was all Mark and Ten could talk about when they first showed it to me. Your female fans, I’m sure, love to pretend that the song is about them. You could probably fill an arena tour of fans purely off the fantasy. There’s no reason for you to put that to an end. Even if you don’t end up with Wendy, whoever you date from this point on will constantly bring that conversation back up. The intrigue will die when you reveal it all.”

You know it’s true, all of it, it’s easy to see from social media’s point of view. Part of Joshua’s appeal back in the day when you were building his public profile was that no one knew who he was dating. It made the people _crazy_ , they were always clamoring over his accounts to try and see if anyone showed up to his games with him. With Jaehyun, it’s a thousand times more so. You know what you’re doing.

“You’re kind of a genius,” he admits, flicking you on your forehead fondly.

You saucily glance at him over your shoulder. “I know. Can I say something selfish, though?”

“Of course.”

You’re looking at the situation through the lens of your job, but you’re also looking through the lens of your own life. Seeing the way you know hundreds of interview requests will pour into your inbox the moment Jaehyun reveals you to the world. The way you’ll never be able to walk the streets of LA again without being recognized, the way you’ll probably have to quit your job because of some conflict of interest. It’s part of the reason why you’ve been so okay with Josh not making your relationship public, because you’re not ready for the attention that comes with it.

Not to mention if he does tell the truth, you don’t want whoever he ends up with to live her life under some bizarre shadow you never meant to cast. You know that your name would constantly be brought up in any articles about his romantic life from now on, something you didn’t want for you, him, or his future girlfriends. Selena Gomez can’t do anything without Justin Bieber being brought up, it’d be the same for all of you.

“The main reason I don’t want this getting out is because I don’t want to be famous,” you admit softly, fingers winding through a loose string on the carpet. “I’ve seen what it does to people and to relationships and it is just… not for me.”

You’re not talking about him, he’s as unscathed by fame as anyone you’ve ever seen. But with Josh, and Wendy, you’ve had a front row seat to the churning tides of celebrity, and you don’t ever want to drown in that. You’ve perhaps chosen the wrong business to be in, but you’re going to do your best to stay out of it.

“I’ve never thought about that,” Jaehyun hums, before he fixes you with the same affecting gaze. “Y/n, you don’t have to worry. I’ll take it to my grave to protect you.”

You’ll never let it get that far, you presume there’ll be a moment thirty years from now, when you’re no longer in contact with him, that he’ll forget about his promise and tell the world who you are. But it won’t matter then, you’ll be safely ensconced in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere, with no internet and no access to Instagram and no reason to care about Jaehyun Jung anymore. But it’s kind of him to promise.

“A noble quest, Sir Jaehyun, thank you,” you bring the mock British accent back, something just for him.

“Anything for you, m’lady,” Jaehyun picks up the accent himself to respond to you, and it’s only then you realize that he’s still holding your hand.

You don’t anticipate what he does next, lifting your hand to his mouth so he can press the sunniest of little kisses into the sloping hill of your third knuckle, and your heart churns into a standstill.

You actually have two selfish thoughts.

You can’t have Jaehyun Jung falling in love with you now that he knows the truth. He is with your cousin, and they’re happy, and you only have a short time left until you can be with Joshua like you’ve always wanted. There’s no need for feelings to make this complicated. Falling in love with him would make this a thousand times worse. He’ll have to settle for having you as his first love, because you’ve already made peace with his place in your memory.

You shift your hands so you’re holding his in the handshake position, then you say, “So we won’t let this affect us? We were kids then, there’s no reason for a week in the past to cloud the strong foundation we have here.”

His fingers twitch against yours, but he agrees nonetheless, “Right.”

“Friends?”

“Friends.”

That night, when you’re cuddled up to Josh in bed, you bring it up.

“Guess who was at my aunt’s house today.”

“No idea,” he doesn’t even look down from his phone. “Ricky Martin?”

“My parents.”

“No way,” at least that catches his attention. He puts his device face down on the nightstand and turns on his pillow to face you. “Did you talk to them?”

You wrinkle your nose. “What do you think?”

“Babe,” Josh lets out a deep sigh as he smooths out a strand of your loose hair. “Don’t you think it might be good to start building a relationship with them?”

He’d been so adamant about finding out the truth behind your fractured ties with your parents. Yet, through the time you've known him, always seemed to be supportive of your choice to keep your distance.

“What? Why?”

“I mean, you’ve been at odds with them for more than half your life over a petty difference in lifestyle.”

“Petty? Who are you kidding?” You’re more than a little bit annoyed with him now, surprised at finding out how he truly feels. “My mom literally shouted me to tears in the parking lot of my high school graduation when she magically reappeared from Burma to discover I gave my invitations to my aunt and uncle. You know this. That’s not petty. ”

He opens his mouth to retort, but this is one thing you can’t let escalate into an argument. That’ll just rip open the scarring once again.

“Just because your parents come to every game you play at home doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. Those wounds won’t just go away. Forget I brought it up. Goodnight.”

You roll over to face the wall and think of the way Jaehyun had blocked your dad from cornering you by the dessert. How he’d boxed your mom out from talking to you on your way to the car, and wonder why Joshua just doesn’t get it.

—

“Hey, sunshine,” Jaehyun’s voice rings through the speaker on your phone.

You smile in spite of yourself, still entertained even though he’d been using the nickname consistently for the past few weeks. “Must you call me that?”

“Just because I agreed to keep the picture a secret doesn’t mean I also had to forget it,” you can almost picture him sticking his tongue out at you. “Hi, sunshiiiine.”

“Hello, JJ.”

“I’d like to use my rain check,” he says nonchalantly. “Today’s the day.”

“I think it’s my rain check to use,” you gripe at his enthusiasm, scrolling through your phone calendar to see if it’s even possible. “And we already have dinner planned for tonight!”

“Look at the schedule, please?” He begs, injecting as much whine in his voice as he can muster.

You tap over to where Josh’s list of games is synced with your phone, and there it is, in tiny purple letters. This sly bastard.

“Kings vs. …. Jaehyun. I cannot believe you!”

“Please, please, it’s the only time the Islanders are in town this season!”

“Fine,” you relent with a groan, though you’re not as upset as you’re pretending to be. “I’m at the office, so meet me outside of Staples’ VIP entrance. Your team should know where to go.”

“Oh, I’m not bringing the team. It’s just you and me, baby,” he proclaims, mostly as a joke, but he really should’ve taken more time in crafting his phrasing. You’d agreed to be friends on the floor of your bedroom a few weeks ago, he can’t be hefting around phrases like _it’s just you and me_ in that way. It’s not good for you.

“Johnny will know where to drop you off,” you amend your statement, and hang up before he can get another flirtatious word in.

Since you’re a clown, you actually check your hair in your rear-view mirror and pick some nonexistent lint off your Kings jersey before you get out of your car at the arena. But there’s no reason for you to do so, because Jaehyun obviously could not have cared less about his appearance.

“You look… atrocious,” you can’t stop the word sludge from your mouth as soon as you’ve met up with him by the ticket booth.

He’s in this awful old Islanders jersey, mostly black with this gigantic squiggle of teal, red, and yellow across the belly, beneath the old man logo. That would’ve been fine on its own, but he’s decided to wear a more modern neon blue and orange cap with the recent NYI logo, and together it’s just a mishmash of visually stimulating chaos. He appears thoroughly pleased with his outfit though, despite your insult.

“This is a vintage throwback from the 90s, thank you very much.”

“Right,” you push down the brim of his hat playfully. “That doesn’t mean you don’t look any less dumb.”

Tae Lee has red-framed glasses on today when he greets you, eyes widening in shock when he sees your companion,

“Hey, y/n, oh my god. Jeffrey Jung?”

Jaehyun pounds his fist against Tae’s through the plastic barrier separating you guys. “Hey man.”

“Can I get an autograph? Sorry to bother you,” Tae asks shyly, and you’ll never get over how laid back Jaehyun is about this stuff.

“Sure, don’t worry about it.”

As Jaehyun signs an errant scrap of paper, you lean over him to talk to your friend,“I’m buying the tickets today, Tae, since I’m not on duty officially. Lower bowl, please.”

Tae takes the slip of paper from Jaehyun with a profuse amount of thanks, then he gets to typing on his computer.

“Good that you’re buying today,” he thinks out loud as he clicks through several screens. “Because Josh’s personal ticket quota was already used.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah that’s fine,” you don’t think twice about there being no tickets available. Josh was known for handing out freebies to his friends, Ten probably got the email and forgot to forward it to you. “Lia’s here, or something like that. Thanks, Tae!”

“I’ve got the first round of beers,” Jaehyun calls after you as you run up to the arena ahead of him, excitement and anticipation bubbling in you at the prospect of the impending game. Plus, you’d never say no to free alcohol.

Despite his celebrity, he goes completely unnoticed in his garish outfit, probably because the brim of his hat is slung so low you can only see the bottom of his face. Once you find a suitable beer vendor by your section, you loiter by the condiment stand while he gets in line for the drinks.

There are a couple girls to your right, putting ketchup on their hotdogs, and you can’t help but overhear their conversation as you scroll through your phone.

“He flew me out just to see him play tonight,” the taller one is gossiping to her friend and her gorgeous blonde hair shimmers even in the dull light of the lower bowels.

The darker-haired friend sighs dreamily, “I still can’t believe you were that lucky that he found you again on Instagram after so long.”

The girl is in a black Kings jersey, but you can’t see the numbers or the name on the back. You make a mental note to ask Josh which one of his teammates has started to date someone new.

“He told me he could never forget his first love, and that he wanted to be with me,” she blushes prettily, holding out her arms to show off the jersey. “He gave me this to wear.”

She turns to model it for her friend, and you crane your neck to see what’s on the back of it. You only catch the tiniest bit of information, just the letters _ong_ and the number 4, because Jaehyun’s reappearance blocks your field of vision. But that’s enough information for you.

Baby Chenle is the mystery player.

His last name is Zhong and he wears 44. There’s no one else on the team this girl can be here for if she’s telling the truth. That’s so cute, she must be his girlfriend from when he went to boarding school for hockey in Minnesota. No wonder Joshua had been helping him with so many flights, they’d been coordinating to get Chenle’s girlfriend out here for a Kings game.

“What was that?” Jaehyun follows your line of vision, but the pair of girls have disappeared into the crowd.

“Nothing, just the throes of young love,” you explain it away as you take your beer from him, sort of giddy as you picture the innocent rookie’s face next time you get to pester him with questions. “Now come on, we’ve already missed the anthem!”

Your seats are only five or so rows back from the glass at center ice, in a pocket of fans that actually include a decent number of people rooting for the Islanders.

“Hooooooly fuck, these seats are prime,” Jaehyun marvels as he takes a snap of the rink on his phone, posting it to his Instagram immediately.

> **@jeffjung:** this isn’t the coliseum, but it’ll do!

“Is that the first time I’ve ever heard _the_ Jaehyun Jung curse out loud?” You tease him, because that seriously might be the first time you’ve ever heard a dash of profanity from his lips.

He wrinkles his nose at you. “You’ve never seen _the_ Jaehyun Jung at a hockey game, huh, sunshine?”

You truly haven’t, because when Jaehyun gets into hockey, he really gets into it.

He makes friends with the hardened Islanders fan beside him, them pestering you the moment the Kings give up a goal within the first two minutes. You frown in irritation, displeased at the horrid display of defense, and it’s not until Jaehyun starts to elbow you in the side incessantly that your mood re-lightens. The pair of you crush your beers in the five minutes after that, and you return with four cups instead of just two so you don’t have to keep getting up for the rest of the first period.

The Kings score halfway through the second period, a classic backhander from Kopitar to tie it up, and you do your fair share of gloating right in Jaehyun’s face. He retaliates by throwing a handful of popcorn in your hair and you get him back by chugging the rest of his beer, forcing him to get up for the next round sooner than anticipated. The game up fabulously entertaining, the back and forth is lighting-fast, the hits are brutal, and it ends up going into overtime, tied 1-1.

It takes until then for the real Jaehyun to come slithering out, at a moment where Drew Doughty nearly loses the puck while he’s attacking the net, he erupts in a fury of trash talk,

“Hey you fucking asshole! My right nut has more skill at dangling!”

You know there’s no way Doughty actually hears the outcry, but his neck pivots a slight degree to the left as if he’s searching for the source, and in a flash, the Islanders have the puck, Matt Martin racing back up the ice as fast as he can. He’s bearing down on the goal, he’s almost there. You blink, and instead of scoring, Martin’s being hit up high in the head, crumpling to the ice against the boards behind the Kings goal.

“Oh my god!” You exclaim when the rink explodes with commotion as the players begin to fight.

“Go, go, go!” Jaehyun is bellowing, face purple with effort. “Fuck him up!”

The man he’d befriended earlier is screaming at the top of his lungs, “Get him good, Park! That was such a dirty hit from ninety four!”

You strain to focus in on the middle of the scrum, finally managing to make out the numbers of the two players currently going at it. Then, your jaw drops.

“Wait, holy fuck, is that Josh?!”

It’s definitely Joshua at the center of this fight, fists swinging wildly as he tries to dodge CY Park’s gigantic frame. They’re showing the replay on the overhead screen, you can see the way Joshua leaves his feet to hit Matt Martin illegally, you catch how CY immediately drops his gloves, landing a punch across Josh’s face before he even realizes what’s going on.

That’s CY for you, loyal to a fault to his teammates and pretty much no one else, tying a hugely ironic bow around all of this. He had been traded before Josh was ever on the team, so there’s no sense of camaraderie held there, in fact, it’s a pretty brutal beatdown that Josh takes from CY. Even with his visor on, Josh’s face gets pummeled four or five times by direct hits from CY’s ungloved fists.

This is the first time you’ve seen Joshua in a fight since you’ve been a part of his team, and it’s so much more terrifying than you expect. Every blow you flinch, almost as violently as he does upon impact, and Jaehyun’s hand ends up wrapped around your bicep, steadying you.

The referees step in when CY manages to wrestle Joshua’s helmet off and pin him down to the ice, and the buzz of the fans reaches a frenzied climax, the cheering and stick taps reverberating throughout the arena.

“Number sixty one, 5 minutes for fighting. Number ninety four, 5 minutes for boarding, 5 minutes for fighting and a game misconduct. Power play for the Islanders,” the head referee announces the penalties and the pro-Los Angeles crowd erupts in boos.

“Did he just get tossed?” Jaehyun gapes, finding it hard to believe what’s just unfolded. “He didn’t start it!”

“Shit, I’ve, I’ve gotta go,” you gasp frantically, knowing exactly how Josh gets when he’s tossed out of a game. It’s only happened on two previous occasions, but you hate these games more than anything. You’re going to have to spend all night policing his Instagram comments and making sure he doesn't post a middle finger on his story.

But the game has resumed and Jaehyun’s hand is still on your arm as he’s yelling, “Oh my god, get the fucking puck, Lee, get it! Pass, pass! Barzal’s open, pass!”

As if Jaehyun’s controlling the game with his magic words, Anders Lee masterfully retrieves the puck from the corner, slides it over to a wide open Mat Barzal, who tucks it neatly into the net. Islanders win.

Jaehyun doesn’t even properly celebrate his favorite team’s win, he only grabs your shoulders so he can guide you out of the row with a, “Okay, now let’s go.”

The two of you hurry your way out of the lower bowl of the stadium, through the dregs of Kings fans who have started to leave the game early. You lead Jaehyun through the concrete tunnels that only team members and family have access to, heading directly to the players’ private entrance. As if he knew you were coming, the director of player personnel, Vernon, is waiting for you, blocking your path forward.

“Vernon, you gotta let me in there,” you grumble, needing him to indulge you just this once.

“You know what he’s like, he won’t want any staff in there, you included.”

Each time he’d been tossed from a game before, you and Ten and some of his other team members had tried to calm him down in the waiting area by the locker room. Both times the attempts had failed, devolving into a tantrum from Joshua and lots of thrown towels. He'd posted a 'fuck you refs' on his story the second time, and got suspended a game for it.

But those were different, he hadn’t been on the receiving end of a pummeling those times. You can’t help the worry that plagues you, that rushes through your veins at the idea that Joshua is somehow broken beyond belief in the locker room.

“I just, is he okay? CY really went after his head.”

“Yeah, for good reason,” Vernon huffs in incredulity at Joshua’s behavior on the ice. “I don’t know what the hell he was doing with that hit.”

You can't disagree with him on that. It'd been an incredibly boneheaded play, and you can only hope that Joshua had done it in the heat of the moment. The alternative is far more sinister.

“Can’t you just check on him for her, man?” Jaehyun entreats Vernon on your behalf, even though you didn’t ask him to. “She’s obviously really concerned.”

Vernon nods, “Yes, I’ll check with Jackson and the training staff.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s fine,” Jaehyun reassures you, throwing his arm around your shoulder so you can tuck yourself into his side. You clutch at the fabric of his jersey, breathing him in as deeply as you can, hoping it will bring you some modicum of comfort.

“I know, but CY is huge and Josh is just not a fighter, no matter how much he pretends to be macho,” you mumble, and Jaehyun only curls you into him tighter.

Vernon comes walking back out of the tunnel and his face isn’t set in such a grim expression anymore. He gives you the pertinent information without hesitation, “He’s fine, he’s cut on his eyebrow and has a nosebleed, and he has to go through mandatory concussion protocol, but he’s fine. He doesn’t want you back there, though.”

Relief percolates through you completely at the knowledge that Josh is more or less okay, so much so that you’re not even upset that he won’t let you see him.

“Alright, thanks for trying, Vernon,” you express your gratitude, and he nods, turning back around to deal with the post-game scrums.

“Should we wait?” Jaehyun asks lowly, guiding you away from where people are starting to emerge for interviews.

“No, we should go to dinner and see if he contacts us then,” you run a hand through your crazy frizzy hair, trying to think of the best plan of action. It’s too late to cancel with Lia’s team, and you all need to eat. You’ll be able to pick up some stuff for Josh if he feels too poorly to show up. “We should go now, though, he won’t like us hanging around.”

Jaehyun offers to drive your car for you, a kind gesture that you appreciate because your hands have not stopped shaking from the moment Josh’s frame hit the ice. This is a side effect of caring too much, you know. Your companion gives you your emotional space, not even attempting to start conversation.

Ten is already seated at your reserved table inside the restaurant, and the glasses scattered in front of him tell you that he’s been put through the same wringer you were.

“Did you see the game tonight? What a fucking mess.”

“Yeah, actually, we were there,” you moan as you collapse into the booth, signaling for the waiter to come over. You need a drink, or five.

“That fight was grotesque, I hate that I was so entertained by it.”

“The fight was bad, but Barzal hit a beauty of an overtime winner, I won my fantasy league with it,” Jaehyun brags quietly, the first time he’s shown off his pride for the Islanders win, and you know it’s just because he’s trying to liven up the mood a little.

“Why the fuck are we talking about the game?” A gritty voice slices through the air, and all three of you turn to look.

Josh’s right eye is completely swollen closed, angry and black-blue, and he has a line of neat stitches above a cut on his eyebrow and a gash on the bridge of his nose. If he’s here that means he’s passed concussion protocol and skipped the postgame scrum, and mostly you’re happy he hasn’t ended up in the hospital.

“Oh, Joshua, you’re here,” you scoot over immediately so he can sit next to you and you can’t help but fuss over him. “Are you okay?”

But he’s still laser focused on Jaehyun’s earlier comment, biting out, “Why the fuck are you an Islanders fan if you live in LA?”

“I grew up—,” Jaehyun starts to answer.

“He grew up in Long Island, Joshua, don’t be rude,” you finish the response over him, hoping that you can absorb some of Joshua’s ilk. “I ordered you an old-fashioned, if you want one. It should be here soon.”

“Where’s Lia?” Ten asks you quietly, hoping that the hockey player won’t overhear, but he does.

“Who the fuck cares.”

Both Jaehyun and Ten’s heads jerk back in surprise at the rough answer. You grab Joshua by the collar of his dress shirt and pull his face close to yours, eyes hard as you scold him in a harsh whisper, “Hey, listen! I know you got tossed out of the game but you need to cool off and tell me if you’re okay.”

You catch how angrily his jaw clenches, but then his shoulders drop as some of the tension dissipates from him with your warning.

“I know, I’m, I’m sorry. I’m okay, they cleared me,” he mumbles, and then he apologetically turns to Jaehyun. “Sorry, man. My head’s not always in the right space when I get tossed. I hate it when that happens.”

Jaehyun accepts it without protest. “It’s fine, man.”

“Anyways, Lia told me she wasn’t coming to the game or dinner,” he tosses the revelation at Ten after he’s taken a large swig of his drink. “No idea why. Was she supposed to be here, anyways? I thought it was just you two going to the game.”

“She wasn’t at the game?” Ten looks to you, and you shake your head.

“She wasn’t scheduled to go, but I’ve heard no word from her or the team. She tell you she wasn’t coming?”

Ten shakes his head as well. “I didn’t hear anything.”

That’s weird. Who exactly had used Josh’s personal tickets today, then? Usually you or Ten are informed when someone is going to be attending the game so you can account for any errant social media posts. If Lia wasn’t there… then, who?

“What do you mean ‘supposed to be here’?” Jaehyun questions the table at the use of the strange phrase.

“It’s like an agency thing,” Josh explains vaguely, nonchalantly, then resumes his conversation with Ten.“Yeah, she seemed mad when she called me. Do you know what that’s about?”

“I only know what you know?” Ten answers, as baffled as you are.

Even though you and Lia are not close by any means, she usually gives you a cursory heads up when she’s not feeling up to something you’ve planned for Josh’s feed. Radio silence so far today.

“An agency thing?” Jaehyun asks once again, clearly out of his depth with what you’re discussing.

You’re a bit shaken by the events of the evening, so you don’t quite understand why he’s questioning you repeatedly like this. Until you remember that Jaehyun has never been informed of the true status of Josh and Lia’s relationship. He’s only been presented with their public-facing golden couple image. You should stop the conversation here, to preserve your hard work, but you’re just a tad too late in pulling off a successful detour.

“Yeah, it’s like a fake relationship thing. Lia boosts my public image and I bring her the sports fandom. Agencies do it all the time,” Josh details it dully, like he couldn’t give a fuck, and then he resumes pestering Ten. “Anyways, you seriously heard nothing from her?”

Josh and Ten start discussing the situation back and forth so quickly you can barely follow, but you can’t tear your eyes away from how Jaehyun’s just sitting there, blankly shell-shocked expression written all over his face.

“Hey, are you okay?” You gently touch his arm, and he blanches at the touch for a second before realizing it’s you.

“Fine.”

He’s decidedly not fine about it, but you can’t tell if he’s legitimately upset by the truth or just confused.

“Are you mad about it?”

“No, I just, I guess I didn’t realize that stuff like that… actually happens. You deal with this stuff, too?” You don’t like the way he’s looking at you, like he’s unsure of who you are.

“Yeah, it was weird for me too when I first found out about it all. I didn’t come up with the idea, but I did help Josh with it as much as he needed.”

He’s probably feeling like you’ve been using him this whole time, like he’s just been a pawn in your mega-scheme to get Josh famous. That was never, ever, _ever_ the case. You’d quit your job before using Jaehyun to boost your professional success.

“I’m sorry that you somehow got dragged into all of this. I’m sure if you’re not happy with this forced couple-couple friendship, you can end it.”

You’d let him be happy with Wendy from afar, even if planning all these dates involving him has made you the happiest you’ve been in recent history. Whatever he wants.

“I mean, that’s what the agency wants, isn’t it? So I have to keep going?” He’s asking a normal, agreeable question, but it feels like you’re getting grilled. You need him to know he can do truly what his heart desires.

“It’s not a slave contract or anything, this is just sort of a mutual agreement they have,” you lay it out for him plainly, honestly. “If they really want it to end, it can.”

The flash in his eye you interpret as anger, an emotion you’ll later find out is completely the wrong one, but it’s late and it’s dark, and you’re emotional and your voice cracks a little when you bend your head over in shame and apology,

“Jaehyun, I really am. Sorry.”

True to form, he doesn’t bat an eye. “It’s okay, don’t worry.”

—

You completely forget that you have that weird conversation with Jaehyun by the next morning. You spend most of the next week preoccupied with ensuring Joshua’s injuries don’t scar his handsome face and keeping him from responding to the angry Islanders fans that blow up his comments.

That Friday night, the bro squad 2.0 lights up with an invitation from Jaehyun to go out for drinks, and both you and Mark reply in the affirmative. You go right over to the dive bar from the office, not bothering to change out of your pencil skirt and blazer, and you can easily spot Jaehyun’s broad shoulders in a tiny booth by the back. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been spotted by fans yet but you suppose the demographic of this establishment doesn’t quite overlap.

“Hey, JJ,” you greet him as you take off your coat to throw in the booth.

“Hey sunshine,” he replies, then detonates a grenade with no care. “I broke up with Wendy.”

You comically flop forward, hands catching yourself on the seat cushion. You squint your eyes at him in the dim lighting, trying to piece together whether or not he’s drunk. You can’t see if his skin is tinged pink under his black hat, but you can see the sweat beading around his sideburns. He definitely could’ve had a few before you walked in.

“Excuse me, what?”

“Yup,” he seems immensely satisfied with himself, proudly puffing his chest out, and he’s definitely intoxicated.

“Oooookay,” you drag out your response, before a slug of panic bursts into you. “Um, please tell me this had nothing to do with what I told you the other day at dinner.”

What you meant then was that it would be okay if he no longer wanted to be spotted out with Josh and Lia! You didn’t think that would mean he would break up with his girlfriend-not girlfriend whatever the hell she is!

“Nope, well, I mean, you just gave me the push to finally do it,” he doesn’t appear phased by any of it, in fact, he is quite resolute with what he’s done. “Anyways, it’s over and we’re here now.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

He grabs a menu from the side of the table and begins to look through it. “Ask me again after we’ve been drinking.”

“Oh, no,” you breathe out. You’d planned to show up and talk, not to seriously get into the alcohol tonight. You expect Mark to take up that handle for you.

“Oh, no, what?” Jaehyun glances up from the menu in concern. “You don’t want to drink?”

“I can drink, it’s fine,” you admit that lack of desire to is not why you’d declined. “But I don’t think you want to drink with me. Josh, Mark, and Ten all absolutely hate it, I just showed up to hang out.”

He doesn’t know this fun fact about you yet, and you’re not sure he’s going to want to find out.

“I think I’ll be okay. We drank beers all night at the Kings game.”

Beers are child’s play to you. This poor kid.

“No, you don’t understand. This is about me when I really commit to drinking, because my tolerance is freakish,” you state clearly, pulling out your phone to scroll back to some pictures. You settle on a picture of you, smiling brightly in the middle of a living room full of passed out basketball players. “This is from the week after the Lakers won the championship. Kuz had a staff party at his house that I went to. He is more than twice my size but I drank three times more than he did that night. After we took this picture, I had to help carry him to his bed - Kyle freaking Kuzma! If he can’t keep up with me, I doubt you can.”

Jaehyun does not give a damn about your warning and instead takes it as a challenge. “You’re on.”

“Okay……” you eye him warily, unsure if he realizes he _will_ end up blacking out tonight. You think of an alternative, and tell him as much, “How about this, we’ll order some shots and a few mixed drinks, but in order to do a shot or take a drink we have to answer a question. I’ll double you. That way you won’t get that blasted that fast.”

“I think you’re really underestimating me.”

“Oh, honey. I’m not,” you pat his hand on the table in a condescending way. “Please just go with it.”

“Fine, but only because you said please,” he pouts in frustration, crossing his arms like he’s 7 and not 27.

“It’s your liver,” you quip, and then signal over the waitress to order.“Hi, can I get fifteen shots of tequila and two vodka sodas?”

“By the way, where is Mark?” You ask once she disappears back to the bar, wanting to make sure you’ve ordered enough for everyone.

“Oh, he texted me separately saying he wasn’t going to make it after all.” Jaehyun holds out his phone so you can see the message he references.

> [11:03 pm] **captain canada:** sry got stuck at the bank, will prob be here late. go wo me and ill try to pop in before closing

Twin flames of endearment and annoyance spark up in you, at Mark’s nickname in Jaehyun’s phone book and his lack of communication with you. You should’ve expected him to be working late on a Friday, what with the insane schedule his I-Banking job gives him. If you realized he probably wouldn’t show up, you would’ve suggested something more low key than drinking.

“Ugh, that bastard. He didn’t text me!”

The waitress returns with a platter of small shot glasses, all brimming with the nefarious liquid and your two large cocktails.

“No time to dwell on that, bottom’s up!” Jaehyun downs a shot, and you down two, wincing at the way the alcohol burns your throat as you drink. Just because you’re good at drinking doesn’t mean you _like_ it.

You haven’t even put the second shot glass down the moment Jaehyun dives in head first, “Okay, who knows the truth about your parents besides me?”

You should’ve realized this wasn’t going to be a _what’s your favorite color_ type of questions game you’d be playing tonight.

“Mark, because he accidentally overheard one of our screaming matches on the phone,Josh, because he basically forced it out of me, and Ten because he was there. That’s it.” Woof. You immediately gulp down the double of tequila and grimly think that you should’ve ordered another ten shots just for yourself if this is how it’s going to be.

“How do you actually feel about Wendy?” Jaehyun blurts as soon as you’re finished explaining your answer to his first question.

“Wait, wait,” you hold out your hand so he can’t push any more shots your way. “This isn’t ask y/n things about her life night, this is supposed to be a back and forth.”

Your face scrunches in confusion when Jaehyun groans and leans his forehead on the table, knocking it there softly three times. Then he mumbles into his elbow,

“I was pretending to be confident, I’ve had a few shots already and your proclamation of tolerance really shook me.”

Now his hat is perched on his his head in a manner that allows you to see the cotton candy flush of his cheekbone.

“I knew you’d already been drinking!” You exclaim, feeling vindicated. “Do you feel drunk?”

“Past tipsy, yeah,” and with the gift of hindsight you can catch the barely controlled slur in his words. “I’ve had four including that one we did together.”

He’s in the mood to have fun, not become a sloppy, broken down mess, and you have to indulge his desires at least a little. You relent, “I’ll let you get away with this one. I’ll catch up first.

You take a shot, though you don’t have to, and when the breath is released from your lips, you start, “Okay, about Wendy. I don’t hate her, if that’s what you think.I don’t know, it’s hard to put into words. When I came to LA, I was really excited to have a girl cousin to play with, I think I probably told you as much.”

The words were naive and hopeful, spoken on a swing seat that you hardly left that week. He smiles in remembrance. “You did.”

“But with two pre-teen girls together, it was just a recipe for disaster waiting to be baked through. She was already doing commercials and small TV spots at that point, and I guess she wasn’t pleased that her parents’ attention and resources now had be divided between her and sad, little old me.”

You know this for sure, she voiced it to you as much, in exactly that way. _I can’t believe I have to go to ten fewer auditions a month because we have to take care of sad, little old you!_

“And of course, I was jealous of her beauty and her success but above all, of her relationship with her parents. It always felt like I was pushed to the wayside in favor of her, which is understandable since she was their daughter, but after my parents doing it first, you can see why it would hurt. I don’t think we ever got a proper chance to start off on the right foot.

She never acknowledged my presence in high school, sparingly popped in and out of my life once we went to UCLA, and completely iced me out once I started my career. Anyways, I don’t know, it always seemed like she got everything I dared to want. The popularity, the beautiful prom dress, the fancy car and nice apartment at school, CY Park…” you list it off, the ranting cathartic. You bottle this in way too much, you have to get it out every once in a while.

“Wait, CY Park? What?” Jaehyun splutters over a sip of his water glass. “What do you mean?”

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. You’re still sober but your tongue had slipped.

You play dumb, burying your face in your phone so he can’t see the way you are desperately trying to avoid this subject. “That’s not the question you asked.”

“You still have one more set of shots to match me,” he slides a pair of the glasses onto the table in front of you. “Drink.”

Once the shots are down, the glass of his gaze pierces right through you. “Why did you mention CY Park?”

“Ah, shit,” you curse lowly, knowing that even though they’ve supposedly broken up, you’re about to air out Wendy’s dirty laundry. “Only Mark knows this.”

Your hesitation to voice the story gives Jaehyun pause, and there is the true him peeking out from all the alcohol when he defers to you, “You don’t have to tell me, then.”

“It’s fine, but I will have to take another shot,” you may as well do so, you’re already exorcising all your demons tonight anyways. You welcome the burn of the spirit this time, needing it to propel you through this. “Where do I even start, god? So, I’ve worked a lot of jobs before, right?”

Jaehyun’s chin dips in a nod. “Right.”

“I worked with swimmers at UCLA, a dozen different Dodgers at my internship, and even with Kuz, and not once did I ever even think about crossing the line as an employee. I know that lots of people in this industry do it, but I was never tempted. Then I got put on CY’s team, and I just knew I was doomed.”

You assume that your affinity for dimples started with the child Jaehyun you knew, and CY’s dimply, cheeky grin was all he needed to seal the deal. You’d never been the kind of person to be struck speechless, but you’d been so affected by CY’s aura that you couldn’t come up with anything to say during the first ten minutes of your introduction to him.

“He was nice to me in a way that no one else had ever really been before, and I, honestly, was infatuated with him from the first day we met. I never said anything or did anything, and to this day I don’t even know if he knew that I liked him. Like I said, I didn’t even tell Mark about it. But Wendy… This was during a time where it seemed like we were finally patching things up. She was curious about me and what was going on in my life for once, so I trusted her, and I told her everything.”

This is her most personal betrayal of you. You hadn’t minded that she had her own friends and her own life, and you always wanted to keep a door open to her out of respect to your aunt and uncle. So when she started calling after you announced your new position, you thought nothing of it. Even strangely clairvoyant Mark didn’t see it coming, he was only pleased that you were finally patching things up with your cousin. You remember what happened next, exactly.

> **@monday_tuesday_wendy to @real_cyp61:** had so much fun at dinner last night ;)

“I found out because I ran CY’s dog’s account for him in addition to his main Instagram, and I saw one of her messages pop up on his phone. She apparently slid into his DMs the night that I told her about my feelings, and they dated for six months after that. She broke up with him after he got traded because she didn’t want to move to New York. Looking back on it, it was just a silly crush and I can’t be mad at him for not being able to interpret my invisible signals. But at the time, it was like the worst thing ever.”

You’d been drunk for an entire week after their public announcement and had never spoken to her about your personal life again. CY cried when he left your office for the final time to catch his flight to New York, and you sobbed at home that night because it felt like you were losing everything.

When Joshua kissed you at a Kings party six month later, it felt like that fixed everything. Though you know that your instant crush on Josh after joining his team was nothing but a rebound from CY, you’re sure that the passage of time has mellowed you out into having true feelings for him.

You take one shot, then another, in an homage to when you would sit at the liquor store down the block from your apartment and contemplate which brand of tequila you would buy for the rest of the night.

“So I don’t hate her, I swear I don’t. But I’m never really going to like her.”

Jaehyun opens his mouth, primed to say something deep and comforting, but decides against it and instead utters, “I’m going to drink in solidarity with you, because that is fucking rough.”

“My turn,” you roughly shove another glass into his hands after he’s taken his drink so you can stop this deluge of emotion from welling up in you. “Why did you break up with Wendy?”

“Because I wanted to. And after hearing that story, I definitely did the right thing,” he breezes out easily, then downs the shot without hesitation.

You wait for him to go on, to launch into a story, to give you the sob-o-rific details like you’d just given him, but he’s pleased as punch to just sit there and look at you. You hand him another shot, he takes it, and you ask,

“Were you disappointed when I asked you to keep the picture a secret?”

You kind of know what he’s going to say, because you know who he is as a person, but you’re still disappointed when he simply answers, “Yes.”

“Hey, this isn’t fair,” you whine loudly. “I gave you these super long winded monologues and you’re not playing along by giving me these short answers.”

“It’s not my fault those questions were easy to answer, but I’ll bite. I broke up with Wendy because she wasn’t for me, not at all, and this lemon drop of a girl that I know told me that I could do so if I wanted to,” it’s your turn to blush, heavily and thoroughly, the deep crimson staining you all over. “And I was disappointed that you wanted to keep the picture a secret, because I think you should be shown off.”

Jaehyun would show you off, he would, he’d shine his own sunny spotlight all over you, warm and wonderful. It wouldn’t be so bad to be famous, if he was with you.

“Why do you still wear the ribbon around your wrist?”

Shot, followed by a cheeky grin from him as he extends his left hand out so you can see the token. “Because I like it.”

You feel compelled to look away from the artful way he’s staring, and once you see that all of the shot glasses have been emptied, you take off the final drinks on the platter. You place the matching glasses across from each other, and declare,

“We just have our mixed drinks left, one last question, anything you can think of. Make it your worst. Whoever finishes their drink goes first. Ready? Go!”

This is a bit unfair for you to offer as a competition, because you easily crush the bubbling mix of alcohol, chugging it down in a few seconds. Jaehyun struggles to drain his cup, lingering a few seconds after you to finish drinking.

“I feel like straight trash,” he groans as the cup goes skittering from his hand onto the table.

“I told you,” you gather up the scattered cups, trying to form some kind of order for the waitress. “We can go home, if you want to.”

“No, no, a promise is a promise,” he’s completely drunk now, eyelids heavy and lips curling up in a steady smile. “You finished your drink first, so ask away.”

You’re still caught up in everything you’ve already discussed, head spinning from the cavernous discussion on top of the alcohol. How does this man, who you’ve known for barely six weeks, feel so confident in saying he would want to show you off to the celebrity world?

When Joshua, who you’ve known for two years and been sleeping with for a better part of a year and a half, still will not go public with you? You don’t care anymore, you’re ready for it, attention of the public be damned.

“If you had a member of your team that you loved, would you be willing to give up a portion of the spotlight to bring them into it?”

“The team member being you, yeah?” He sees through you in an instant, like you’re built from the finest plastic film on this planet.

“Hypothetical question, not me!” You deny it, but he already knows.

The theme of the night must be short answers, because Jaehyun simply says, “CY was an idiot.”

He doesn’t know that you’d been referring to Joshua, but there’s a galaxy of things left unsaid in that sentence.

 _CY was an idiot for not seeing the signs. CY was an idiot for not liking you back. CY was an idiot for going to New York without saying anything. CY was an idiot for picking Wendy over you_.

You pretend to slurp up the dregs of your drink, though you know you’ve drained it dry down to the ice. You need to stall, to cool the spreading flush down your neck.

“What’s your question?”

"Can I try something?” Jaehyun blurts, and you really think he is so much, so much of everything. He is so much more than Jaehyun, or JJ, or Jeffrey Jung.

“That’s not really a question,” you keep your gaze firmly on the bartender past his ear, because you’re going to get overwhelmed if you look at his face.

“Yes it is. Can I try something? Yes or no. It’s nothing bad, cross my heart.”

He crosses an x over his chest; you’d need King Arthur’s sword to cleave through the tension glaciating between the two of you, plus the fire from Merlin’s dragon to melt your frozen tongue.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Jaehyun flings his hat off his head as he stands up, lilac hair shining as he makes his way around the table to come sit next to you on your side of the booth. There’s barely enough room on the seat for you and your purse, let alone you and your purse AND him, but he doesn’t care, letting his thigh brush up boldly against the part of your leg where your skirt has ridden up. Your shoulder blades hit the wall behind you, but you’re deliciously entrapped within his arms.

He brings himself so close to you you can make out the Big Dipper of tiny dots sitting pristinely across his left cheek. He must have a similar vantage point of your face, because the tips of his fingers cascade past the skin around your eyes as he murmurs,

“You have so many wrinkles.”

“Jaehyun, what?” You purse your lips at his observation, wondering why he’s pointing out the inevitable signs of aging you’ve begun to show.

“Yeah, you know the little dots?” His thumb dances a particularly graceful arc past the delicate skin by your ear. “You have a ton, they’re so cute.”

Your heart doesn’t just flutter, it explodes into a cacophony of loveliness. Has Jaehyun Jung thought you were cute for the past seventeen years?

“You mean freckles,” you tease him in a soft voice, as you lightly poke at one on his face. “The dots are freckles, not wrinkles.”

“Alright, whatever.” He presses your hand to his face, holding your fingers against his cheek as he declares, “I’m going to kiss you.”

Drunk actions are sober thoughts. Drunk actions are sober thoughts. Drunk Jaehyun wants to kiss you, that means sober Jaehyun wants to too.

You’re not drunk, though you’re well on your way. But inebriated you wants to kiss him back. And you’d be lying if you didn’t admit that sober y/n wants to too. You’d agreed to be just friends, but he’s touched your heart in a way that you’ll never be the same again. To kiss him once, nothing more, nothing less, wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

Your chests are moving in this perfect duet of affection, pulsing with the breath you can’t keep in as he pulls at your arm gently, tucking your hand against the back of his neck. He’s not shutting his eyes, he’s drinking up every last drop of the image of you there in his arms. It’s only at the climax of his tenderness that his eyes flutter shut, satisfied with it all in a way that he’s never been before.

That means it’s time, Jaehyun Jung is going to kiss you now—,

“Yooooo, what’s up guys, haha, made it in before closing!” Mark bursts onto the scene, tie askew on his neck, and Jaehyun breaks apart from you so quickly the air he generates blows your hair back off your shoulder.

“Last call!” The bartender shouts, ringing throughout the small space, and you wave your card in the air for the waitress to retrieve.

“Damn it!” Mark scrunches his nose in displeasure. “I swear I timed it right.”

You clear your throat, trying to force your heart down back below your sternum, “You really need to leave that bank, Mark. I’ve been telling you that for months. Your hours are criminally insane.”

“Jaehyun’s drunk,” Jaehyun proclaims in the third person. As he lies down backwards to look at Mark, you catch his head in your hands before it can rest on your chest.

“Jaehyun’s drunk!” You echo him, giving Mark a _look what I had to deal with_ look, though you’re not mad about it, not at all. “And I am not drunk, but I am not sober, so you arrived just in time to be our designated driver. Sorry Marky, I’ll buy you coffee in the morning, okay? Til the sparkly end.”

Mark snarls at you, baring his teeth in a funny display of his not serious annoyance, stipulating, “You owe me avocado toast, too. Til the sparkly end.”

You cannot believe Mark does not pick up on any of the vibes as you heave Jaehyun out of the bar, just like you warned him would happen. You say this because for the entire ride back to Mark’s place (since the drive back to Jaehyun’s Beverly Hills townhouse is apparently far too long) Jaehyun stares at you in the rear-view mirror from where he’s buckled in the front seat, small, knowing smile embroidered across his face.

Mark demands you don’t take an Uber back to your apartment - ‘ _after all, you’re my forever roommate’_ \- so you end up curled up on his futon with a blanket as you watch Jaehyun fall asleep on the floor.

You’re about to be snatched by the claws of sleep, still in disbelief at what happened at the bar, when you feel a hand curling around yours.

“Hey, sunshine,” Jaehyun’s groggy voice echos quietly in Mark’s living room as he braids his fingers with yours.

“Hey, JJ.”

“I’m sleeping with you tonight, I can’t believe it. I’ve wanted to do this since I was ten.” He lets out one tiny, giddy laugh, and then all you hear are his snores.

You are pure sunshine then, lying on Mark’s couch as the moonlight streams in from his window.

“Me too.”

—

“AVOCADO TOOOOAST!” Mark’s bellow wakes you up the next morning.

“I’m up, Mark, I’m up,” you yell in surprise as you involuntarily sit up as a reaction to the ruckus.

You don’t have a headache and there’s no lingering nausea in your body so you’ve escaped yet another night of binge drinking without a hangover. Not sure if you should view that as an accomplishment.

You feel a weight tugging on your arm and you realize that you’ve woken up still holding hands with Jaehyun, and your sudden movement has caused him to stir into consciousness as well.

He squints in the bright light of the morning, but it’s hard to miss the smile that spreads across his face when he takes in the fact that your hand is still in his.

“How you feeling, champ?” You ask, reaching down to brush the hair out of his face so he’s not quite as uncomfortable.

“Like I was the one who got pummeled in a hockey fight,” he groans, using his other arm to shield his eyes. “God, can we close the blinds?”

“You don’t have to come out with us if you’re dead,” Mark offers as he sashays into the room in his exercise clothes. “You can chill here, it’s just y/n who owes me. We’re cool ‘cuz we’re bros.”

“Nah, nah, I need coffee if I’m going to feel like a normal human being,” Jaehyun gets up from the floor, bracing himself on the coffee table so he doesn’t fall back down. “Looks like there’s a Starbucks on the corner we can walk to.”

Once the two of you are dressed in Mark’s old Maple Leafs gear — clothes that are just a bit too small on Jaehyun and a bit too big on you — your very comical looking trio makes your way down into the nice spring day.

“So you witnessed immovable Hurricane y/n last night,” Mark dips his toe into the churning ocean of whatever last night was.

“Yes, yes,” Jaehyun throws a friendly… if possible… arm around you as you walk down the sidewalk towards the Starbucks. “I did.”

“The first time we went to a party at UCLA I think she drank ten cups of jungle juice and had to piggyback me back to the dorm. Things never change,” Mark recalls, though it had been twelve cups, not ten, and he conveniently left out the detail where he threw up on your dorm’s floor.

“Hello? Mark Lee speaking,” Mark answers the sudden ring of his phone, before turning back to you. “Sorry guys, it’s work.”

Mark runs ahead to talk to his bosses in private, leaving you and Jaehyun to loiter behind. You think he’ll give up on keeping his arm around you as the stroll continues, but if anything, he’s relishing in the sensation of having you close by him like this, if his geeky goofy grin is any indication.

“Sorry about the whole Hurricane y/n thing,” you apologize. “Though I did tell warn you you wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

“Yeah,” he nods solemnly. “I can see that now.”

“Did you black out last night?” You’re curious, you can recall every little second within a second that you experienced with Jaehyun at the bar.

“Nope, no, I didn’t,” he smirks, casually dropping that tidbit of information like he’s reciting the morning weather. “I remember everything that happened pretty clearly.”

“O-oh,” you stutter. “Okay.”

His hand comes up at your shoulder, brushing against that same patch of skin by your ear he had touched last night. And then,

“Your freckles look even better in the sunlight.”

That gives you half a mind, no one whole entire mind, to kiss him right on the mouth, right there in the middle of the sidewalk, but then you see Mark waving at the two of you from the patio outside Starbucks. There are a decent number of people littered at the tables, and you definitely can’t be caught kissing a celebrity in this manner. You’ll save that for later.

“Snag a table with Mark so you don’t have to go inside and get noticed in your state,” you order Jaehyun as you pull the blue hood of his sweater over his easily recognizable hair. “What’s your coffee order?”

“It’s fine,” he makes no attempt to move past you. “I’ll go in with you.”

“Tell me.”

After a few seconds of impasse, when it’s clear that you won’t let him past those doors with you, he gives you his usual, “Matcha latte. Please.”

Then he takes out a five dollar bill from his wallet, presses it into your hands, and instructs you, “Take this, get yourself something sweet.”

Jaehyun takes his time giving you the money, his brilliant beam doing nothing to dull the sensation of his warm hand on yours. You want to appreciate every little bit of him, to have him freckled across you, and you must look like an idiot when you walk into Starbucks to order, still giggling.

“An orange juice, a venti Americano, and a grande matcha latte. Plus three avocado spreads, three bagels,” you search the display of pastries, to find exactly what piques your interest, and there you spot it. “And this lemon bar.”

Jaehyun, the fool, waves at you through the window as you wait for the food.

You place the lemon square neatly in the middle of the table as you pass out the drinks and the rest of the food, and you suppose the sour fruit will continue to bind the two of you together. Mark and Jaehyun chat over whatever the Leafs and Islanders have been up to for the past week, and you’re happy to just sit there with your everything bagel and take it all in.

Your phone rings when you’re more than halfway through breakfast, and you don’t even look at the caller ID before you pick up, flicking the call on speakerphone.

“Hello?”

“Y/n.”

The last piece of bagel you have in your hand goes tumbling right to the concrete as Mark coughs on his coffee, spraying the cream liquid everywhere.

“Wendy?”

“Please look at E!s latest post on instagram, and then get back on the line. Thanks,” she bites out, the anger billowing out of your phone’s speakers in fuming waves.

Mark scrolls through his phone with thumbs of fury, rapidly typing out the handle and pulling up the picture for you all to see. You literally feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up on end in fear as you turn to glance over your shoulder, into the row of bushes by the parking lot.

You can’t see anyone, but you know they’re there, because this picture is of you. Though your face is mostly covered with your sunglasses, you can see Mark’s Auston Matthews tee, your hair up in a bun, and Jaehyun’s five dollar bill in your hand.

> **@enews:** _EXCLUSIVE: Less than two days after apparently calling it quits with Wendy Shon, newly single Jeffrey Jung might be snatched up already by a mystery woman. Head over to the link in our bio to see the smitten songwriter on his coffee date_

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. You and Jaehyun glance at each other in panic, and Mark quickly locks his phone, your face dissolving from the screen into a sea of black.

“Hello?” Wendy’s voice pierces through the air. “Hello, y/n, I know you’re still on the phone.”

“Mark is here,” you inform her thinly. “Say hello, Mark.”

Mark catches on to what you’re doing, blinking at you in recognition before he speaks, “Hey Wendy, what’s good,”

“Y/n, take me off speaker. Now,” she demands, and you agree, this impending fight is not something that you really need witnesses for.

As soon as you have the receiver to your ear, she growls, “You didn’t tell me you were dating my ex.”

“Mark is here!” You exclaim, pointing at your friend in exasperation though you know she can’t see. “Mark is literally here with us right now. It can’t be a date if Mark is here.”

“I don’t give a shit about Mark, or even E! calling it a date. Why does the caption say that Jeff looks smitten with you?” Wendy sounds hurt, like legitimately, actually hurt, and you have no idea why. Paparazzi shots are notoriously doctored to produce narratives that promote the best gossip.

“Because that’s the kind of over the top language that E! likes to use?”

 _Give me your phone_ , you mouth to Mark, and he slides the device over to you across the table. You scroll back to the picture, fully prepared to collect some evidence that will allow you to win the argument but… you can’t.

E! had used the right word when they used _smitten._

Because Jaehyun looks undeniably smitten with you.

There’s a second shot on the post, of you just after you’ve taken his money from him. He’s towering over you on the sidewalk, head curved down towards yours, this velvety aura of adoration visible in his expression, even from where the blue hoodie frames his face. You’ve seen his eyes drip with affection like this only once before, when he’d achieved his childhood dream of singing the national anthem at a hockey game. And even so, this is different, there’s a little bit too much devotion painted into him.

But why are you surprised? He’d boldly tried to kiss you last night, you’d slept through the night holding his hand. You don’t know how to feel, flattered and woozy and nervous all at once, all clouded over with the sudden fear that Jaehyun shouldn’t be liking you like this, because you just know it’s going to ruin everything.

“Have you two been seeing each other behind my back?”

“Wendy, you’re acting way out of line here,” you have to start taking steps to defend yourself because if you’re not careful, this is going to become very hard to explain.

“No, no I’m not. He ends the relationship out of nowhere and then all of a sudden is spotted out with you?”

I’ve been helping the two of you out with your relationship for the past six weeks, it’s not weird for us to be out together.”

“Ugh, this always happens to me because of you, everyone ends up liking you instead of me. You knew how much I liked Jeff!”

She’d almost gotten the upper hand there, almost gotten you to pause in confusion and allow yourself to wonder what sort of role you’d played in her emotional well-being over the years. But she throws the last part in, and your vision flashes red. Who gives a fuck what she’s been through because of you? You’re about to give it to her, in just the way you’ve wanted to for all these years.

But the anger goes in an instance, replaced with this eerie sense of calm, the only thing allowing you to matter-of-factly say, “And you knew how much I liked CY. But the difference is, I’m not dating your ex-boyfriend.”

You hang up on her. As soon as your line becomes available, your screen lights up with a call from Ten. You silence your phone, and look back up at Mark and Jaehyun, distress written all over their faces.

You know Mark is distressed on your behalf more than anything, having sat through the worst of the CY blues. But you can’t tell if Jaehyun is feeling bad for you or himself. You’d made it pretty clear on the phone what was going on, without giving him much consideration. Not like you had time to, and not like there was anything to clarify. You’re not dating him.

But what he feels for you can’t be that serious, can it? Now that you’re looking at it out of the haze of last night, he’s clearly rebounding off of Wendy. Just because he wanted to kiss you last night doesn’t mean that he actually has legitimate feelings for you. This must be an act, after all, he’s learned from the best.

“Ugh, sorry. I’ll get my contact at E! to take the post down,” you apologize to him, but not for what he’s probably anticipating.

“It’s fine, don’t worry.”

“Nah, man, you’re going to want to,” Mark pushes him a bit, having been friends with you long enough to know what’s exactly going to go down. “Unless it’s a confirmation post, y/n is going to get eaten alive.”

Unless he’s willing to confirm a relationship you don’t have, he’s going to be picked apart in the gossipy speculation for a) being a womanizer and b) seeing a mysterious non-celebrity and you’re going to be obliterated for a) the ‘other woman’ possibility and b) being a mysterious non-celebrity. Though none of it is true, why would Jaehyun subject himself to that for a girl he isn’t even dating?

To top it all off, Jaehyun’s phone starts vibrating with a call from Johnny. That’s pretty much it.

His quiet answer makes it obvious what he feels, “Yeah, yeah, then let’s do it.”

One pinprick of sadness stabs itself into your chest, then goes.

Ten is calling again, and another time, and another, and you can’t ignore him for much longer. He’s going to want to see you in person if the number of calls is any indication.

You turn back to your companions before you get up to leave, contrite, “I should go meet up with Ten before he freaks out. I’m so sorry.”

You order a car to take you to the office from the back entrance of Starbucks, not wanting to have Jaehyun’s confused stare upon you for any longer.

You can’t help but feel like you’ve ruined everything, as you watch the two of them from the back of your Uber, still deep in conversation about you, you’re sure. How had things gone from so perfect to so awful in just one phone call? You’re convinced that Jaehyun will never speak to you again, that he hates you. But wouldn’t that be better? He’s not yet over Wendy and you’re in love with Josh and there was no reason for any of this to happen.

Once you finally get through to Ten, he tells you to just go home instead of into the office after you’ve explained what’s going on. He doesn’t even ask any snarky questions about the contents of the post, just agrees to get E! to issue a retraction and remove all traces of it. As soon as you’re off the phone, the next in the line of calls clicks through, Britney Spears blaring through the backseat of the car.

“I saw an interesting post of you out with Jeff Jung just now,” Joshua opens in lieu of a proper hello.

The image may as well be tattooed in your vision forever, Jaehyun and you and you and Jaehyun and how it had almost felt right to be caught with him. Fuck, you’re doing nothing but furthering your own confusion, and it doesn’t help that Josh is on the other end of the line.

That’s what compels you to promise, “I am not seeing him, I swear.”

“What? Oh, I know you’re not,” Joshua laughs without a care, like the idea of you and Jaehyun together was as made up as unicorns and Voldemort in his mind. “I was just going to say I can literally picture Wendy fuming. That’s why I called, thought you might have a funny story.”

You have a story about Wendy, but it’s not funny, it’s nauseating.

“You have no idea.”

Josh dips into his pool of persuasion, “Want to come over, babe? I’m off tonight.”

_I think you should be shown off._

“Do you want to go out to dinner?” You ask tentatively, picturing a corner bistro stuffed to the brim with flower planters. A glass of wine, a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe walk through Urban Light and take some cliché photos?”

His answer won’t change things, not really, but you kind of need to know.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he sighs tiredly, and now that it’s quiet, you can hear the TV blaring in the background, a sign that he’s already home. “Do you really want the paps around you for the second time today? Plus, I had lunch out with Lia today.”

“Right. See you soon,” you mumble, then you hang up and press your face against the cool glass of the window. You can’t even be happy that Josh and Lia have managed to patch whatever went wrong up for the sake of the agency.

You’re out of your depth, lost in the woods, up the river without a paddle.You have absolutely no idea what to do. You’re fucked.

You fire off a short text before you can stop yourself, then stow your phone away deep into the recesses of your bag. You go home and shower, change out of Mark’s clothes, and fall asleep until your alarm wakes you up again.

You tell yourself that you check your phone every ten minutes during dinner with Joshua because you want to make sure that E! doesn’t post about you again. Each time that your screen comes up with no notifications, you want to breathe a sigh of relief because of it, but instead it only pearls another bead of sweat across your forehead.

It’s hard to ignore your device when Josh starts kissing your neck and lifting the hem of the sweater you’d worn over. You decide to actually kiss him back because that’s the only thing that will make this go by faster, and you wish you were able to clog your ears closed when he whispers how beautiful you are when you’re in the middle of his bed.

When he’s lazily scrolling through his phone afterwards, arm still firmly holding you to him, you physically cannot put it off any longer. You gently remove yourself from his grasp under the guise of retrieving his water bottle from the fridge. Instead, you go diving for your purse on the couch the minute that you can, fingers trembling when you see that there is one, (1), 1, _one_ new notification waiting for you.

> [1:45 pm] **you:** sorry again abt how crazy today was!  
> [10:35 pm] **JJ:** want to get dinner tomorrow? i owe you for the coffee.

He doesn’t hate you, thank god.

> [10:36 pm] **you:** as long as you don’t make me answer questions about myself to eat.  
> [10:36 pm] **JJ:** don’t worry, sunshine. i got you

The tension cording your muscles dissipates after that text exchange. Everything in the past twenty-four hours had just been a huge misunderstanding. You’ll talk it over a nice bottle of red wine tomorrow, one that Jaehyun won’t feel compelled to funnel down his throat, and you’ll go back to being friends. Easy, peezy, lemon squeezy.

After you return to the bed, you catch a glimpse of something as you’re watching Josh tap through his stories over his shoulder. It’s a picture of a very recognizable lemon square, in the center of a table. Oh.

> **@jeffjung:** my favorite this morning!

—

You take your time getting ready in your living room, not willing to risk looking in any of the mirrors in your bedroom or bathroom. You don’t want to see the way your skin pales with nerves, how your fingers shake with anxiety.

The night air through your open window feels unusually warm, even now that the sun’s gone down, and you can tell that the conservative suit that you’ve laid out will be way too warm for you to wear. Glancing at the clock on your oven, you realize that you’re running out of time even though the restaurant is only a short walk away. Mustering a deep breath, you screw your eyes shut, run back into your room, and grab the first article of clothing your hands can find inside your closet.

You don’t know why you’re suddenly nervous, suddenly overcome with the desire to keep your eyes shut. But the seconds are ticking away, and you open your eyes to reveal that you’ve grabbed this spring sundress you bought last season, short and sassy and made out of the butteriest pastel yellow cotton.

You toss into onto the back of your couch as soon as you register what you’ve pulled out. You absolutely cannot wear that. You end up putting the shirt and skirt of your suit on. You’d rather sweat in the unusual heat rather than risk any further misunderstandings.

You realize you made the right choice when you show up at the location pin that Jaehyun’s sent you, when you see him there in khakis and a dress shirt in the exact color of the dress you almost wore. He’s lingering in front of this resplendent planter overflowing with fragrant flowers, buds in purple and red and blue.

This is where you’d wanted to go to eat yesterday. A quaint little place where they stuff fresh flowers into baskets lining the ceiling and put a handful of blooms on each table. You’ve dined here dozens of times and each occasion is more enchanting than the last.

“How’d you know I love this place? This isn’t exactly your neighborhood.”

The corner of his lip quirks up in a smirk. “I know everything.”

There’s only one person who’s been here with you enough to know.

“You talked to Mark, huh?” You hypothesize, and even in the evening light, Jaehyun’s blush is more resplendent than any of the flowers behind him.

“Yeah, you missed out on a full day of him nursing my hangover and destroying me at Halo.”

You mock groan as he holds open the door for you. “I had more pressing things to do like clear up all your relationship rumors!”

He stops for a second, and you think he’s mad, but then he flicks your upper arm in amusement.“That wasn’t just my fault, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” you’re compelled to apologize, to make amends and make things right. “I’m sure you saw that E! took down the post and issued a statement saying that I was just involved with your social media PR team. It’ll blow over. Sorry again.”

The post had been up for less than an hour, so you doubt that any real damage has been done by some baseless speculation. Though he doesn’t hate you, you’re assuming that Jaehyun invited you here to let you know how disappointed he is in everything, how you need to distance yourselves for the good of his career.

“You really don’t have to apologize.” But Jaehyun does not seem the least bit upset by any of it now, only gestures you forward so you can follow the hostess to your reserved table.

You’re about halfway into the back room when you hear your name being called,

“Y/n?!”

The voice is coming from a corner table, and you’d be able to spot that green hair anywhere, “Chenle?”

The rookie is not alone at the table, he’s with some of the other Kings that hang around Josh a lot and who know you. They all wave enthusiastically in their own specific brand of hockey innocence.

“Hey, y/n,” JB greets. “Long time no see.”

“Mikey, Calvin, JB! It’s good to see you guys. I’m here for dinner with a friend,” you tug at Jaehyun’s arm so he’s right next to you. “Guys, this is Jeff.”

Even though the guys are all famous in their own right, four mouths drop wide open. Mike Andersen laughs in disbelief, “Jeffrey Jung? Oh my god, we’re obsessed with your song. What was it, Petesy?”

“ _sunshine in the moonlight_ ,” Calvin recites, sticking his hand out to shake Jaehyun’s. “Huge fan, man. Listen, can you let us in on a secret? Tell us who the girl is?”

Jaehyun’s hand settles in the middle of your back, a pointed, invisible signal that you pick up on, but he just shakes his head and denies him, “Sorry man.”

“Why don’t you come sit with us?” Chenle offers after he’s stood up to fully hug you like the sweet boy he is. “We’re just waiting for Josh.”

You hadn’t known that Josh was going out to dinner tonight, he’d been sort of vague during your text conversation today, but this is nothing new. You demur with his request, “We don’t want to bother you on boys’ night.”

“It’s cool with me, if you want us to,” Jaehyun shrugs, and apparently he’s extended the influence of his charm to professional athletes in their mid twenties because they all look like they might faint.

The hostess and waiter help pull over an extra table and set of chairs for you and Jaehyun. Chenle orders another bottle of wine for the two of you to join in on the frivolity, and you get two or three cups in before the small talk fully dissipates into something else.

“You were dating that chick from that Netflix movie, right?” JB questions Jaehyun and your hand freezes on the bread basket, thinking that they’re about to bring up the E! post from yesterday.

“Wait, I’m pretty I saw they broke up,” Calvin interjects. “Wasn’t he spotted with someone else?”

“That was denied!” Chenle darts in next, definitely abreast of what’s going on in the celebrity world.

“Shut up guys, he’s right there,” JB hisses at his teammates before turning back to Jaehyun. “But, yeah, what’s up with that?”

You keep your eyes firmly on the bottle of wine you’re pouring into your glass as gives the same vague answer he’d given to you,

“Ah, yeah, we broke up. No hard feelings there, just wasn’t for me.”

“You must be eager to get back into the dating pool.”

Mikey nods his head in agreement with Calvin, “The ladies must be dying for their chance, how many chicks in LA have you hooked up with?”

Your silent, hypocritical thought lends itself to the others, _Yes, pray tell, Jaehyun. How many chicks in LA have you hooked up with?_

“There they are!” Chenle holds out his arms, putting and end to the very interesting line of questioning. But who is _they?_

You tilt your head and _they_ turns out to be Joshua, handsomely buttoned up into the maroon silk shirt you got him for Christmas, and this gorgeous willow of a girl with shimmering blonde hair.

Your nail rips at the skin of your thumb so violently you can feel the blood start to bubble up, but you do nothing but stitch a perfectly pleasant expression onto your face. Josh’s smile isn’t giving anything away, but you can tell from the twitch in his eye that your presence there has thrown him the biggest curveball in the history of the major leagues.

“Hey all,” Josh greets the table, then you notice the girl has her hand on his arm. “This is Rosie.”

“Yeah, alright,” JB exclaims in recognition. “We heard you were here to see another game!”

You take a gulp of wine out of your glass, taking in the girl, and realize that you know her.

Well, you don’t really _know_ her, but you’ve seen her before. By the lower concourse condiment stand at the Staples Center. With her dark haired friend, wearing a Kings jersey. Only, she hadn’t been wearing a Zhong #44 jersey like you’d thought.

She’d been wearing a Hong #94 one.

“It was a crazy one, I can’t believe you got into a fight that time,” Rosie coos, running her fingers lightly over the puckered scar on Joshua’s eyebrow. The scar you’d just spent the past week putting ointment on yourself.

It’s a horror story approaching its terrifying conclusion, solving the mystery behind who had used Joshua’s personal quota that day, why Tae had been weird about you showing up for tickets the past few games.

“These are my teammates, Chenle Zhong, Calvin Petersen, Mikey Andersen, and JB Lim,” Joshua introduces his pals one by one and does not even break a sweat when his eyes sweep past you. “This is my social media manager, y/n, and this is J—

“Jeffrey Jung, oh my god!” Rosie squeals, hopping up and down in her platform sandals in excitement. “I love your music, I bought your single on iTunes at midnight when it was released.”

Jaehyun is smiling in his usual way, and he has no reason not to, because he thinks he knows it all. He leans over to give her an air kiss, “Hey, it’s nice to meet you. Thanks for the support.”

The waiter pulls over yet another duo of chairs and your nail keeps picking, picking, picking at your thumb.

“Wait, Hongsy, what happened to… you know?” Chenle mutters under his breath once the couple has settled in, and you know he means Lia. You glance over to Rosie and she doesn’t seem fazed. Shit.

“I was tired of living a lie, so I figured what better way to end it by showing my first love off to the world?” Rosie leans her head into Joshua’s shoulder after his admission, and he kisses her on the forehead.

“Oh, wow, that’s so great!” Jaehyun compliments them happily. “How’d this happen, exactly?”

“Well, we lost contact after high school, but Josh found my Instagram a few months ago. We’ve been dating ever since he visited me in Miami, and I’m going to be moving to LA over the summer.”

It thunders in your vision, the bloody end of that horror film, an IMAX projection of Rosie’s beautiful face glowing. _He told me he could never forget his first love, and that he wanted to be with me._ And Joshua’s lovesick gaze the day he’d returned from that stupid road trip. _It’s about long-lost first love, which is one of the purest, most beautiful things._

“Ah, that’s so nice.”

Rosie goes pink at the sentiment from her favorite artist, the blush complimenting the pink of her dress luxuriously. “I can’t wait to hear all about you and the girl behind your song, I can’t believe I’m so lucky!”

Under the table, Jaehyun’s fingers tentatively graze past your knee, a flirty little _I see you there_.

But every nerve ending in your body has been seared off completely, all sensation in your body completely sapped out, save for the footlong region of your torso your heart is encased in. The muscle vacillates between annihilation and hyperventilation, the punishing pace of its beat crushing you into submission as you try to tap out a text without anyone noticing.

> [9:45 pm] **you:** call me ASAP. biiiig FE

“It’s truly great to finally put faces to all the names I’ve been hearing about,” Rosie claps her hands together happily. “Like, y/n, I’ve heard so much about you. How long have you worked for Josh again?”

> [9:46 pm] **peanut:** *joker voice* and…. here…… we….. go….

“Y/n,” Jaehyun beckons you, squeezing at your knee to turn your attention back to the table.

You can’t come off as rude, because there’s no reason for you to do so. You’re sure Joshua has painted your portrait as one of perfect professionalism. So you take the wine bottle, pour a generous amount into Rosie’s glass and politely answer, “I’m about to finish up my second season with the team.”

 _LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO SOME NEW THANGS, NEW THANGS, NEW THANGS_ erupts into the quiet ambiance of the restaurant, and you’ve never been so glad your best friend changed his ringtone to one of his SoundCloud raps before.

“Mark?” You answer the phone in mock surprise.

“Have you tried the Popeyes chicken sandwich?” Mark questions you calmly, like he’d just called you for a friendly chat.

“Mark?!” You inject some panic into your voice as you act, though it doesn’t take much effort to do so. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down what’s going on?”

“I feel like I’m not as loyal to Chick-fil-a as I once was. Maybe I can be swayed.”

“What do you mean —,” you should be nominated for an Oscar for this performance, really. You groan particularly loudly, “Oh my god, you idiot.”

“Hey, I’m not an idiot!” Mark protests at first, then remembers what you’re doing. “Oh, right. FE, fake emergency. Anyways, I love Popeyes’ chicken so I feel like I’d love their sandwich.”

You can’t make this too low-key that it obviously looks like you’re faking, and you can’t make this so over the top that they’ll want to follow you out of the restaurant. Finally, you settle on,

“Yeah, yeah, you can wait in my place until the locksmith comes to unlock your place. I can’t believe you’d forget your keys on the one day your landlord isn’t in town. Idiot.”

“Wait, why is there an FE, weren’t you having dinner with Jaehyun—,” Mark starts, but you can’t get into that. Not here, not now.

“I’ll meet you at home, bye.”

Jaehyun’s brow is furrowed in concern as he watches you hang up the call, and you pat him softly on the arm, explaining your cover story, “Sorry, I’ve gotta go meet Mark, he locked himself out of his place and doesn’t know how soon the emergency locksmith can get there.”

“Sure, text me and let me know if everything’s okay.” Jaehyun helps you out of your chair and hands you your purse from where you’d put it, letting his hand linger on yours for one second more than he should.

“Please Venmo me what you paid for my wine,” you tell Chenle, and then you amiably wave at everyone. “Good to see you all, lovely to meet you, Rosie. Sorry to run out like this.”

You stride confidently towards the stairs, and it is only then you risk a look back, risk a dagger through the heart that is the way Joshua’s eyes flick to you only for a second, then turn back to his… girlfriend.

There’s a miasma of debasement that surrounds you as you begin the trek home, dark and looming and threatening to explode into every ounce of your body. The heels of your shoes stab into the concrete sidewalk in a death toll of insolence, the clicking sound the only thing continuing to propel you forward.

Joshua has a girlfriend. Joshua has a _girlfriend._

Ten used to call you the smartest person he knew, and you’re going to have to tell him to retract that statement about you. Why didn’t you see the obvious signs? The weird transactions on his account and his lack of communication, the way he was always on his phone. Why he hid behind the Lia excuse so often, why he was so reluctantly to go out into the real world with you. None of that was normal. None of it.

You’re upset that this has happened to you again. CY had fooled you the first time and he deserved the bulk of the shame, but now that Joshua has pulled this number on you a second time, one hundred percent of the shame should fall on you. How many times had you decided to be purposefully naive about him, hoped that it would somehow turn out to be all okay despite the ravine full of red flags that he dwelled in?

You’ll have to wash your hands of this in one way or another, will definitely have to look for another job. You don’t know if you have it in you to go scorched Earth on him. As much as you hate to admit it, seeing Rosie at dinner tonight didn’t immediately cauterize your affection for him. You’re going to bleed your feelings to death slowly, openly. You can’t ever be with him after this, can’t linger by him a moment more in fear of wasting away forever, but it’s not as easy for you to turn off your emotions like that, like flipping a light off. You’re going to have decide exactly what you want to do later, when you’re not delirious with betrayal.

You thought you’d done it right this time, had been upfront enough that Joshua knew how you felt. That you’d been bold to actually go for what you wanted, instead of hiding in the shadows like you did with CY. He’d fooled you masterfully, with hot kisses and nights in his bed and promises of a future, but you’d been just a touch too complacent, just a shred too innocent about it all. You were a transcendent social media manipulator, liaison sorceress for the stars, but couldn’t even piece together a relationship for yourself. You’d taken all the advice you’d ever given out and done the complete opposite, done everything you swore you wouldn’t ever do. What a completely foolish exercise in self sabotage.

You open the door to your apartment and beeline straight for the alcohol cart by your couch, pouring yourself a hefty glass of bourbon. You’re going to really have to pound the drinks tonight to have a remote chance of forgetting this terror. Slumping onto the couch, you stare out the window into the sparkling lights of your city view and slug back a double of the spirit.

What hurts the most is that you feel as if you’re stuck in this endless loop of disappointment. You’ve worked hard to move past it, you’ve talked to Mark endlessly and you went to a support group in college, but this stuff just splinters you apart. It started with your parents, how they chose themselves over you, how they wanted to live a life of blissful nomadism without the burden of you with them.

From there, it’s just been pity party after pity party, between Wendy deciding she’d rather have a career than a cousin, and CY deciding he’d rather have Wendy than you. Josh is another spoke in the wheel, Rosie, the hammer driving him into place. You suppose you need to get this through your head now, that you need to be careful about the company you keep, but this is just another personal blow.

You gave all of them all of you and none of them gave a fuck.

Every time you think you’ve dragged yourself out of the eye of the storm, you’re drowned back into submission.You’re not a burden, you know you’re not. It’d just be nice, you know, to have someone. Someone you don’t have to play puppet master behind the scenes with.

A sharp knock on the door brings you back to reality, and you see that you’ve lost track of time, the clock by your oven already reading 11:15. Setting your glass down with a groan, you reluctantly pull yourself off your furniture, lumbering over and flinging open the door to see…

“Jaehyun.”

“Hi,” he’s panting a little, like he’s just run here, and he’s holding a Styrofoam box in his hand. “I, uh, sorry for showing up so late”

You keep your arm firmly blocking the doorway, voice dull as you ask, “Do you need something?”

“Is everything okay with Mark? You didn’t text.”

“Yeah, uh, he left a few minutes ago,” you lie, and you should probably feel guilty at how easy it is. “The locksmith finally called to say he was on his way.”

The way Jaehyun’s eyes dart past your door tells you he wants to come inside, that much is for sure. But you just want to be left alone to wallow in your misery. You’re busy.

“If you’re in the middle of something, I can come back another time,” he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly when he offers, and your brain finally catches up to your tongue.

“Sorry, I didn’t actually mean to say that out loud. Wine pour was heavier than expected at dinner. Er, come in.” As you let him inside your home, you can register the alcohol swirling in your stomach. You’re ironically delighted to find that the apparent cure for your awe-inspiring tolerance is a broken heart.

“Whew,” he lets out an impressed whistle at the cavernous space of your apartment. ”I’ve never been here before.”

“Oh, yes. It’s whatever.”

He scrambles over to the bay windows like a little kid, eagerly taking in the tableau of downtown that is visible. “You have such a sick view, I’m going to have to come over more to take advantage of it.”

You suppose it’s better that Josh had a secret excuse to never come see your new place. Now you won’t feel like the place is tainted by him. You didn’t really want to have to move again.

“Yup, sure.”

He taps the box in his hands, “I didn’t know if you ended up eating or what, but I brought you a slice of lemon raspberry cheesecake, if you want it.”

“Do you want wine?” You cut him off. “I could use some more wine.”

“Wine sounds good,” Jaehyun accepts, then looks over at your alcohol cart to see what you have, pausing when he sees something. “Wait, you, you framed this?”

You can’t believe you didn’t think to put the hidden, secret half of the famous album cover away from where it’s sat in its pretty rose gold frame since the night you found out the truth of it all. You'd kept it neatly pressed between two books in your car until you found a suitable frame. Now that you think of it, the foolish yellow dress you’d pulled out earlier is still on the couch, too, next to where he’d thrown his jacket. He probably thinks you’ve left those out on purpose.

You make a scathing mental note to take the picture down from your vanity, of you, Josh, and Ten at the NHL Awards, and mutter, “Yeah, guess I had to have one nice thing to look at every day.”

“Oh, y/n…,” he whispers, but you don’t catch it because you’re preoccupied with looking for glasses and stumbling upon your hidden stash of top-shelf liquor.

You fish for the bottle of Dom tucked away in the very back and call out, “You want champagne instead?”

The champagne makes you think of the _Wake Me Before You’re Gone_ premiere, how Joshua had been trashed and said I love you to you and you’d almost believed him. How could you have been so fucking stupid? May as well accept that every word from a man from now on is forever tainted, drunk actions are sober thoughts, your ass.

“Hey, are you okay? You’ve been acting really strange since we were at the restaurant.”

You must be deep into the throes of a dream, because Jaehyun can’t really be in the middle of your apartment like this. He’s no different, he’s this big celebrity with all these _women_ around him and he’s probably doing the same thing as Josh. Like come on, he got famous off of you.

As soon as that thought materializes in your mind you screw your eyes shut and shake your head out briskly, trying to feel less like your brain is scrambled eggs. This is Jaehyun you’re talking about, who didn’t even curse until you fed him beers and took him to a hockey game, who still wears that yellow strip of ribbon around his wrist.

Of course, Joshua is famous for loving pink and playing the guitar as a hobby. Fuck, you are going crazy here, you can’t tell what’s fucking real anymore. This back and forth will strangle you from the inside out.

Jaehyun is rambling now, ears as cherry as the duvet on your couch,

“It’s just. Okay, you can stop me at any point to tell me if I’m way off base here. I’m pretty sober so I don’t think I’m making this up. Everything was fine once we got to dinner, but I could tell that something was off with you the moment those hockey guys started blabbering on about my dating life. I saw how hard you were trying not to say anything, what with all the discussion about LA girls or whatever, but I could tell that you were upset by it. I don’t want you to be upset.

We didn’t get to talk about yesterday either and, well. I just, I don’t want you to worry. Wow, I really do say that a lot, huh? But it’s true. Please, _please_ don’t worry.Because I don’t want to fake date or real date LA girls anymore. You don’t even consider yourself an LA girl, so why would I?”

You must make a face _(nerves are shot, remember?)_ , because Jaehyun laughs, this musical trill of affection, and then he professes,

“Like, you know you were my first love, so how can you be surprised that I’m still hung up on you?”

Your heart is too bewildered to make any sense out of what he’s saying, defibrillating itself into a quiescent state where all you can muster is a, “What?”

He’s approaching you now, gracefully gliding along your hardwood floor in his argyle socks, and he leans over your counter to peer into your eyes. “Y/n, were you listening to anything I just said? Are you sure you’re alright?”

Your body trembles with an involuntary shiver, due to the dusk or his proximity or the winds of the changing times, and you breathe out, “I’m fine. A little cold.”

“Come here,” he whispers, fingers gently circling your wrist, tugging your arms past his torso and settling them onto the broad expanse of his back.

His fingers come to cup the back of your head as he tucks you into his chest, smoothing out the locks of hair there as he hugs you, the world’s most soothing embrace. He’s hugged you like this once before, the very last time you thought you were going to ever see him, and it is only now that you realize that this is your most cherished place in the world.

You’re struck by the urge to look at him, so you do, lifting your head off of his clavicle so your eyes can meet his. Why did you even have a single trace of doubt about him just a moment ago? Who are you kidding? This is Jaehyun, your JJ, the twinkle in his gaze is still the same, even seventeen years later.

His hand in your hair waltzes its way lazily to your cheek, slow dancing past the same palette of dainty freckles on your face that entranced him that night in the bar. His teeth gnaw nervously at the crest of his lip, then, he murmurs,

“You are so, so lovely. You’re the loveliest, lemon drop.”

That means it’s time, Jaehyun Jung is going to kiss you now.

Not if you beat him to it. This is your house, your territory, it’s only right for you to make the first move. It’s short and sweet, your first kiss, just you rising up onto your tiptoes to press your mouth against his, as tender and luscious as you can make it.

He leans back with a heavy, shaky breath, overwhelmed by every little bit of you, but he can’t hold himself back any longer. He goes for it completely, mouth opening over yours as he kisses you deeply, clutching you tighter to him than you’d ever thought possible. He’s a constellation dotted right into yours, tilting his head fully to seal his mouth back to yours, to fully soak you in.

You don’t know what to do with your hands, you want them in his hair and on his arms and holding his cheeks, but you decide on hugging him to you, your own personal ray of sunshine. You feel the marble of your counter bump into your back as he bites softly on your lower lip, his cupid’s bow nestling into yours, his tongue brushing past your lips smoothly. His movements are so serene, his actions so appreciative of you, that you don’t feel overwhelmed in any way. You feel cherished. You feel shown off.

A sharp rap on your door resonates through your ear, but it’s more of an afterthought than anything. You contemplate idly that it might be important, someone coming by this late at night, but you really don’t want to stop kissing Jaehyun. You’re finally free to do that, so you let him press you further into the counter as he kisses you, let his strong hand clutch at your collarbone, thumb smoothing over the hollow of your neck. Let it drift further down, past the swell of your chest, to settle on one mother-of-pearl clasp of your blouse.

Jaehyun’s hands freeze on the buttons of your shirt as the same knock peals throughout the space. He kisses you once more on the mouth, then asks, “Shouldn’t you get that? What if it’s Mark?”

You should. But you swear to god, if that’s Mark Lee with a Popeyes’ chicken sandwich in his hand, you’re going to slam the door in his face.

You walk backwards to the entryway, one shaky foot behind the other, to watch Jaehyun watching you, elbow propped up on the counter so he can rest his head in his hand. You let out a loud cackle, hand flying to your mouth to cover it in surprise, and that sends him into a fit of laughter, the two of you giggling your little hearts away, each of you spectacularly googly-eyed over the other.

You throw the door open, and the laughter dies in your throat.

It’s Joshua.

“Hey. We need to talk.”

**tbc!**


	3. sweeter than sweet

You’re rooted right to the center of your welcome mat, fist clenched around the doorknob as you stare up at Joshua. You have no idea what to say.

Jaehyun, blessedly, breaks the silence with a calm, “Hey man.”

The way you’re holding the front door open blocks him completely out of view, so Joshua cranes his neck to see exactly who’s in your house with you. He gives the other man a short head nod.

“Hey, man, didn’t realize you were here.”

“Yeah, I came by to drop off the cheesecake like I said at dinner,” Jaehyun explains his presence there with no hint of embarrassment, like he hadn’t just been kissing the life out of you in the middle of your kitchen.

And, like, he told the others at dinner he was bringing you cheesecake. How is he real?

“You mind if I talk to y/n?” Joshua’s jaw is visibly tense, the tendons there cording with barely concealed effort, and that is so, so rich.

“Go ahe—,” Jaehyun begins to defer to him, but you can’t allow him to be polite this once.

“He can stay.”

“Y/n…” Joshua fixes you with his practiced lurid gaze, hoping to tempt you into dismissing Jaehyun, but you won’t.

You come dangerously close to letting it affect you, but manage to pull yourself out of it respectably with,

“Whatever you need to say can surely be said with him here, right? Right?”

You don’t shout or even put bite into your voice, you state it directly and punishingly, your return gaze hardening into blocks of lead. You hear the sound of shuffling footsteps and you don’t need to turn to know that Jaehyun’s right there, he’s got your back. That is what changes it all. You’d prepared to expose Joshua completely, to level him to the ground with a ferocious scream, but Jaehyun has softened your heart.

You’re going to give Joshua one chance. If he denies it you’ll shred him into little tiny pieces right here and now. And you don’t want him to win you back, not at all. You want the niche little in between, you want him to give you a proper apology so you can try and preserve some sort of courteous friendship. Maybe you’ll be able to sequester this incident from your mind and continue working with him. He has one chance.

“I should have…,” Joshua begins, coughing a little as he searches for his words. “Told you Rosie was coming to dinner. Sorry.”

He’s chosen to apologize in this shady, veiled way, undoubtedly because Jaehyun is here. He’s trying to tell you that he’s sorry for not telling you about Rosie sooner, but he can’t say that, can’t risk his reputation taking the hit. For that fact, you’re relieved that you forced Jaehyun to stick around, because Joshua would’ve tried to poison you with his pretty words otherwise.

Fuck this shit. Two can play at this game.

“Oh yeah?” You raise an eyebrow at him as you cross your arms over your chest. “Why is that?”

Joshua gulps thickly, clearly not prepared for you to take this approach. You’re going to have the sick satisfaction of watching himself dig the hole deeper. It’s only a small drop of salve in the grotesque wound he’s given you, but a drop’s a drop.

“…In case there were any paparazzi that might’ve taken pictures of us.”

Your rebuttal is instantaneous. Sharp. Cutting. “You know that I am good at handling that stuff, so there’s no need to apologize.”

No need to apologize for that specific incident, is what you mean. Joshua has a thousand and one other things to apologize for.

“But I should’ve told you earlier.”

What you say next is the hardest self-reflection you’ve ever done in your life, and you find yourself wishing that you had the free reign to take Jaehyun’s hand, to have him be your steadying mast in it all.

“Why? I am your social media manager, not your friend. What goes on in your personal life is none of my business.”

“You’re right,” Joshua agrees with you, and that’s when it truly sinks in. If he’d be remotely committed to you - beyond the fact that he wouldn’t have a whole other girlfriend - he would’ve denied it.

“I can set up a meeting with Lia and Yeji,” you offer, ever the consummate professional. “So we can put this all behind us.”

“No!” Josh bursts out loudly.

Your eyes narrow. “What?”

He said it himself at dinner that he was done living a lie, surely he will have no problem letting Lia out of this sham of a relationship. If you’re being honest, he did nothing for her or her career, but you’re sure it’s just your bias peeking through.

“No, no. I’ll do it,” his head dips in the first sign of genuine remorse. “You’ve done enough for me already.”

He cannot get you with compliments like this, mindlessly frivolous statements of fact about you that he thinks you’ll cherish. It would’ve worked once upon a yesterday, but you appreciate the much more deep-rooted flattery. If he’d been struck by something else, say, your freckles, you wouldn’t have poured the acid into his heart like you do.

“Oh, I can’t believe I haven’t congratulated you yet,” you tap his arm, like you’re one of his bros lauding him for scoring a goal. Once you notice that his guard is down, his lips parted in a confused smile, you gash his chest open with a scythe of his own words. “Long-lost first love is one of the purest, most beautiful things, is it not?”

His face falls in an instant upon recognizing what he’d said to you upon his return from Miami, a phrase that you once had thought nothing of. He’d given himself away completely then, but he’s not getting away with it now.

You repeat yourself, “Is it not?”

He cowers a little, taking an involuntary step backwards out of your doorway, “Y/n, I really think we should talk privat—,”

“Thank you, Joshua,” you bow your head in deference to him for the very last time. “Good night.”

You move to close the door now that he’s physically out of your home, and he actually has the audacity to put out a hand and stop you. You’re really about to start yelling at him now, icy formality of the past conversation be damned, but he stuns you first.

“So, are you just letting him stay at your place tonight or something?”

It takes a second to register what exactly Joshua’s said to you, until you feel Jaehyun bristle with awkwardness behind you. Oh. _Oh._ Joshua thinks Jaehyun’s here to _sleep with you_ , and well, he probably was, but Joshua does not need to know that. Just like you didn’t need to know about Rosie.

You allow more than a teaspoon of biting harshness into your words. “Would it matter to you if I did?”

The regret starts to creep in, all those times you’d contemplated dating apps and decided against joining, the dates you turned down, the cute men you didn’t flirt with. You should’ve gone on those dates. You should’ve. Not replying to Michael B. Jordan’s DM last year should’ve been the first kick in the pants.

“What?” Josh splutters in disbelief. “Yes!”

That just reminds you of how he’d so confidently claim that you’d never have a secret boyfriend. Of the time you promised him you weren’t seeing Jaehyun and how unfazed by that he’d been. He should’ve been worried. He should’ve. You’re accomplished and desirable and should have been an easy first choice. This is not the time for him to be jealous.

You chuckle, as dark and bitter as un-roasted coffee. “That is too bad.”

“It is getting late,” Jaehyun points out softly, more to you than your unwanted visitor. “And I have an early meeting in the morning.”

You know what he’s doing, he’s defusing the situation so you can be alone and honestly, you have never been more grateful for him.

Jaehyun nimbly side steps you, claps Joshua on the back, and physically drags him out of your apartment. “Come on man, I’ll ask Johnny to drop you off. Goodnight, y/n.”

He closes the door behind him and you are free.

You breathe out loudly, ragged and painful and burning you up from the inside, the last dregs of composure you have spiraling out of you with your sanity. You collapse over your kitchen counter, the cold marble smushing against your cheek, trying to bring some feeling back into you.

There’s three rapid knocks on your door, and you seriously, _seriously_ think about not answering, imagining that somehow Joshua has come back to accost you. But you can’t ignore this forever.

“Yes?” You answer tentatively, and it is not who you expect. “JJ?”

“Forgot my jacket, couldn’t leave without that.” Jaehyun smiles at you, then scurries in on the tips of his toes, not wanting to get your floor dirty with his shoes.

He retrieves his jacket from your couch, then tiptoes over back to your front door. Before you know it, his hand is gently lifting your chin so he can kiss you once more, a candied slice of a caress of his mouth against yours.

“And that. Goodnight.”

You experience such a heady rush of conflicting emotions that Jaehyun hasn’t even gotten into the hallway before you’re dialing a number on your phone.

“Hi.”

“Hey, I was beginning to think you died or something. What was the FE?”

An overwhelming tsunami of the shitshow of everything barrels its way against your heart, and you slump down onto the floor in the middle of your kitchen.

“Y/n?”

Your voice wobbles, and then breaks clear in two. “Oh, Mark.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

He shows up at your house ten minutes later, as promised, with his fluffy Leafs blanket over his shoulder and a bag of Popeyes in hand. Your front door is still slightly askew, you haven’t even had the sense to get up and close it, so he peeks his head in through the crack.

When Mark sees you there, blankly staring at the yellow fabric of your dress, the dress you’d have liked to wear, he just knows.

“Was it Josh?”

“He,” you sigh despondently, having trouble forming the words. You don’t have to pretend now. “He has had a girlfriend for some time now. Love that for me.”

Mark lifts you up by the sad arm, walks you through your apartment, and sits you down on your couch. He cocoons you in the Leafs blanket, leaves, then returns with glasses and the Dom you’d eyed earlier.

He pours himself a glass, then you, and when you toast your glasses together, Mark loyally snarls, “Joshua Hong is a fucker.”

Cheers to that.

After you go through the whole bottle of champagne, you eat the sandwiches together on your couch, then take a stupid snap of your matching fuzzy socks to post to his Soundcloud persona’s separate Insta account. It’s not until you’ve fallen asleep, your head tucked into his shoulder, that Mark secretly edits the caption of his post.

> **@markymark_flowsoffury:** this is a not so subtle reminder to everyone out there that i was the enforcer on my high school hockey team. you mess with my squad, you’re dead to me

—

“Seriously though, I think Popeyes might’ve done it,” Mark is warbling the next morning when your phone starts to ring. “Those sandwiches were so good.”

“You just missed the turn for Chipotle!” You yell as he accidentally guides your car onto the freeway instead of the shopping center. You pinch his arm as he protests, then you pick up your phone.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“What’s up to you too, y/n,” Johnny loudly greets you amidst a chorus of ruckus on his end. “Listen, want to come by R&C?”

“What?” You strain to hear him over the commotion.

“Sorry, there’s a lot of people around now,” Johnny raises his voice so you can make him out. “We’re having a meeting for the music video rollout plan in an hour and could use your expertise. Since, you know, you’re apparently on Jung’s PR squad now.”

You groan at the pointed low blow, but you can’t help the grin, either. “Oh, come onnnnn.”

Johnny chuckles. “You know I’m playing.”

“I’m out with my friend but I’ll come over now,” you agree, and Johnny gives you the parking details before you hang up.

“Can you take me downtown?” You ask Mark, and he hands the phone to you, turning off the GPS from trying to re-route.

“Yup, why?”

“Jaehyun wants me at a meeting,” you answer aimlessly as you input the address for R&C into Google Maps.

Once you look back up to put his phone back on the dashboard holder, Mark is devilishly smirking at you.

“Why are you making that face?”

His fingers tap out the beat on the steering wheel, then he jokes, “I didn’t think you were going to include _at a meeting_.”

You do the mental subtraction, taking out the _at a meeting_ from _Jaehyun wants me at ameeting,_ leaving you with… _Jaehyun wants me._

“Mark Lee,” you scold him, but that doesn’t exactly keep the blush off your cheeks because he’s not wrong.

“What is going on there, anyways?” Mark questions you curiously, and Jaehyun must’ve given something away the day the two of them hung out.

You’re not exactly sure how you’re going to answer that question for yourself, let alone for Mark. A telling sign is just how easily you'd been able to stuff the Joshua thing behind you this morning, but you're not sure. Nevertheless, you’re saved by the shiny R&C building looming in your vision to the right, signaling your arrival at your destination.

You kiss Mark on the cheek, cherishing your sweetest best friend. “Ask me some other time, okay?”

He drops you off with a wave, and you head inside the building.

You go through security and get your visitors badge, then a guard takes you through the maze of well-lit hallways. You take the elevator up to the twentieth floor, and you’re about halfway down a corridor leading to a bustling conference room you already can hear when you pick up on a whisper,

“Psst. Hey.”

There’s a marble vase filled with an egregious amount of fake sunflowers on your left, and right beside it is Jaehyun, lounging by the doorframe of a meeting room. The sleeves of his chambray button down are rolled up to his elbows, exposing the thin ribbon of yellow around his wrist, which glows brighter than the artificial petals next to him.

“I’m good here,” you tell the guard. “Thank you.”

“Hi.”

The two of you are grinning like fools at each other in the middle of this hallway, cognizant enough of your surroundings not to blatantly touch each other, but not stilted enough to keep a proper distance. The skirt of your dress brushes against the front of his legs, and when he lifts a hand to run his fingers through his hair, they purposefully glide past your arm.

“So,” he clears his throat, bashful. “Last night was totally weird.”

You feign innocence with a coy, “Was it? I can’t recall.”

His hand is on yours now, neatly tucked into the folds of you dress, where no one outside of you can catch it.

“Can’t recall the weirdness, or last night in general?” He’s asking you exactly what you think he is, if you remember the exact way his lips pressed against yours, how easily you molded yourself into him.

“Hmmm,” you tease. “Not sure.”

You say it like this so he knows you want him to kiss you, how you want a clear repetition of just how ardently he’d made his affection known.

“Y/n!” Someone from down the hall calls, and you lightly shove Jaehyun away from you, into the abandoned meeting room he’s in front of.

You turn your head to the right, and there is Lia briskly walking towards you, Wendy following at a close distance behind her. Not totally out of the ordinary, because they’re both Rogers & Cowan clients, but why are they here? For Jaehyun’s music video meeting?

“Ms. Choi?” You greet her in confusion.

She storms right up to you, standing toe to toe with your nude heels, and there’s an ill-concealed shake in her voice when she requests, “May I speak with you? Now?”

“Sure,” you eye Wendy warily, the way she hangs back like a lurking predator, before you glance back at Lia. “Do you want to find an open meeting room?”

“Are you having an affair with Josh?” Lia accuses you, seething.

You choke on your own breath, eyes bugging right out of your skull, “Excuse me, what?”

“Well,” she babbles rapidly and shrilly, unable to keep the emotions out of her voice. “Wendy said that you’ve been seeing Jeff behind her back, and you hate her, and we’re best friends, so it would make sense that you would do it to me, too. So, are you? Having an affair with Josh?”

The transitive property of betrayal is lost on you here, you’re not sure what Lia’s accusing you of.

“Whoa, whoa,” you hold your arms out between you and the two women. “Just what is going on here?”

“I’m asking you if you’ve been seeing my boyfriend behind my back.”

All that you’re imagining is Max Shim’s intimidating office, the hairs on the back of Ten’s neck that you stared at, as Josh and your team agreed that being in a concocted relationship with Lia Choi would be beneficial for both parties. You’d been upset, then, obviously. But you’d been told time and time again that this was just for the press. That this was all performative.

“You, your _boyfriend_?” You ask, incredulous.

“I don’t appreciate you playing dumb. I know Joshua told you that we were more than just a PR relationship. It started that way but became more.”

He had done no such thing. This is a disaster.

“Lia, I—,”

She’s crying now, a beautiful little doll with the crystal droplets cascading down her cheeks, “I thought he was just tired from the season, never thought twice that he might be seeing someone else. But it all sort of make sense, right? Why you’ve never tried to be my friend, why you’re always showing up to his games, why he’s always on the phone. You’re not just his social media manager, are you?”

You’d never tried to be her friend because you never had the opportunity to, you’re always at his games to do your _job._ And he was always on the phone because of Rosie.

“I—,” you try to force the words out, something, anything, but nothing comes.

“You can’t even deny it,” she whispers, stunned after she’s probably thought you would put up a fight.

“No, I can’t,” you admit regretfully, catching the way Wendy’s eyes spark in validation.

You can’t deny that you’d had more than a professional relationship with Joshua. But you hadn’t known a single thing about her feelings. How were you supposed to figure out that she was under the impression the relationship wasn’t fake.You couldn’t have gotten that from her not showing up to a few planned games or dinners. If he’d duped you like this so fully, manipulating her would’ve been a walk in the park.

“But Lia, you don’t understand,” you try to reason her, to tell you everything you know

She can barely get the words out between her heaving sobs, but they stab into you when she does, “I think I understand it perfectly clearly. You knew that I was in love with him and that he loved me back, and you slept with him the whole time anyways.”

“Lia.”

“You are such a bitch,” she curses you out, broken-hearted. “But I hope you’ve made all the money you want off of me.”

She runs into Wendy’s outstretched arms, crying into your cousin’s shoulder as she levels you with a fierce glare. You might possibly be the worst person ever. You watch the two of them disappear down the hallway, crippled to your core with guilt at the role you’ve played in all of this.

You hear the hinges of the door creak open, and you hold a hand out, “Don’t. I know what you’re going to say.”

Jaehyun’s mouth is set in a straight line, and it’s obvious he’s heard every little detail. “Oh yeah? You do?”

You push him back into the room he’d been hiding in and close the door behind you. This absolutely cannot be public. Once he’s at a safe distance away from you, you sigh deeply, rubbing at your eye before you attempt to patch this up,

“I am sorry I never told you about that aspect of my relationship with Josh. But I never knew about her feelings, or Rosie, for that matter. There was no affair to have, because I thought it was just me.”

You were in love with Josh, for Christ’s sake! Blindly so. He could’ve told you the sky was green and you would’ve taken that at his face’s value. Yes, you should’ve ended things with Joshua much earlier, but you didn’t even realize there was something more with Jaehyun until…. well, until it was too late.

“The old you would’ve never done this,” he laments, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Done what?” You dumbly ask him to clarify.

“Disregard other people’s feelings for your own personal gain.”

Your palm presses into your temple, trying to relieve the ache there. “I told you, I didn’t know they were actually seeing each other!”

“Like I believe that,” Jaehyun scoffs. “You know everything about everyone. You ruined that girl’s life.”

That is the one drop of catalyst you need to detonate into a million little fires of frustration, because this whole thing is beyond fucked. This? This is not your fault. Nothing about Lia’s life is ruined. She still has her beauty, her career, her family, her friends. You have none of that.

So what if she didn’t end up with Joshua? Lia is destined to end up with an A-list actor at the end of it all anyways. She’s going to cry into a pint of ice cream with Wendy and be smiling on the cover of People by Friday. That’s just the way it works!

“Ruined her life? You are unbelievably naive, Jaehyun, this life, this city, nothing’s a fairytale! No one ever gets what they want!”

“I thought I got everything I wanted,” he admits, though the words only ring hollow.

You lean heavily against the table by the wall, unsure of what else to say, and he puts his hands on his hips.

“Okay, even if, _if_ I somehow believe you, it’s not just about Lia. I liked dating Wendy, the company thought it was great, and the tabloids loved us, but I risked it all to end things with her, because I wanted so badly to be with you.”

You’re taken aback by his sudden confession, “What?”

“So, you know, it’s nice to hear that you lied and were using me just so you could fuck Josh Hong behind my back.” Jaehyun spits out, cruel, and your nail stabs right into the wound it’d opened up in your thumb yesterday.

You’ve been trying to keep a lid on your anger in his direction, anticipating the betrayal he must be feeling, but he’s taken it too far.

“It wasn’t like that, and you know it,” you growl quietly, attempting to delay the shouting a moment more.

“I can’t believe I ever liked you,” he sounds so full of regret, this is the moment in all of this that you’ve felt the most hurt. He’s wasted his heart on you.

“You’re the one who’s been stuck in fantasyland this whole time, Jaehyun!” The timbre of your voice is propelled upward by nothing but pure hurt. “I’ve always seen things clearly, accepted that you were going to be that week and nothing else. You never grew up and realized that I may have wanted to be with someone else.”

You don’t want to be with Josh, you don’t, but it’s totally unfair for Jaehyun to expect this from you. Just because he’d worn your ribbon around his wrist every day _does not_ mean you were obligated to be with him. It’s only now that you’re recognizing that you would’ve liked to, but that option might not be on the table any longer.

“No, no, it was never about you being with someone else,” he denies your accusation, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

Damn him and his perfection, because he’s the one icon in Los Angeles that no one can live up to, you can practically recite his angelic words from the first interview of his you’d ever seen: _I hope she’s happily in love with a boyfriend or something. It’d make me happy to know she was happy._

“I just didn’t think you could ever be this way.”

“You didn’t even know me!” You slap your forehead in exasperation, like that will somehow get him to understand. “You wrote a stupid song about a dream that you had as a ten year old and got famous off of it!”

“Did you ever listen to it?!” Jaehyun yells back, pointing an accusatory finger at you. “You were more than just a dream!”

Jaehyun has kept you on this pedestal for way too long, his one fatal flaw in all of this. He’s _too_ idealistic, _too_ much of a hopeless romantic in a world of damaged individuals. You thought you’d gotten the point across to him, that you’d been able to bond in your loneliness, your isolated little caves of existence, but maybe he just doesn’t understand you at all. You haven’t been able to live his privileged life of Hollywood bliss. You’d been bounced around and weathered down, forced to piece yourself into something from nothing.

You’re losing the will to fight, can’t even muster the energy to shout back. “Whatever you think, it’s still hard for me to believe you to still have feelings for me because of who I was as a child.”

“It’s not, it’s actually quite easy,” he states, baring every little bit of who he is to you plainly when he professes, “I liked you then, loved you, even. And now I like you again. Love you again.”

Love you again. Love you again. Jaehyun is in love with you.

“Or, I guess, loved,” it’s physically painful for him to bite out the words, but he does. “If we’re being honest about details now.”

Past-tense, _loved_.

You’ve just destroyed it all in one conversation, though you suppose this is a culmination of seventeen years of disappointment. You’ve cherished the memories and the piece-by-piece recollection of that time, but now it might’ve been for the best if you’d just never gone to the park that day. Then you wouldn’t have to experience the acute feeling of a past-tense love.

“Just like that?” You ask quietly, wanting to make sure he realizes just what he’s doing.

Jaehyun nods once, a crisp severing of your heartstrings. “Just like that.”

You’ll accept what he wants, a parting gift to him. You open the door behind you, and this is the final refrain of your shared chorus.

“Goodbye, Jeffrey,” you don’t even feel like you can use his given name anymore and he notices when you don’t, his fingers flexing in discomfort. “Good luck.”

Hopefully he’ll find a girl in LA good enough for him, and write a song about her, so everyone can forget about yours.

—

Aunt Clara nearly goes white when she opens the door to see you at the front of the house, and you don’t blame her, because you’re not quite sure how you ended up here, either.

Oh, yeah, you racing out of the R&C building in a flash, calling an Uber because you didn’t want to call Mark in shame, somehow inputting this address, the address of the house you moved to when you were thirteen.

“Would it be okay if I stay here for tonight?” You wobble unsteadily on your heels, every little part of you achy. “Just wanted to get out of the city.”

“This is your house, always,” she greets you with a hug, something different, but perhaps she can pick up on how distraught you are. She calls back into the house, “Honey! Look who’s here!”

“Y/n!” Your uncle rounds the corner from the kitchen, and he goes right for the hug as well.

“Hi, Uncle Charlie.”

“We’re having dinner in ten minutes, so you’re right on time,” he steps aside so you can come in, and you can smell Aunt Clara’s chicken noodle on the stove. You haven’t eaten since Popeyes last night, and your body will break apart if you don’t have something soon.

“I’m going to change my clothes,” you say as you put down your purse and sweater. “I’ll be right out.”

The trek to your room is the same, and so are the white sheets on your bed, even the same sunflower sweater is still hung up in your closet. It’s an eerie snapshot of the past past and the recent past, so much transpiring between these moments of time that you’re dizzy with remembrance.

That blasted box is sitting pristinely at the top of the stack of boxes now, where you’d tossed it after you’d had the big revelation at the anniversary party. You’re going to close the closet door on it, shut that thing out of your life forever, when you spot something that had fallen to the wayside in your previous frenzy, a little trinket taped to the lid that you hadn’t noticed before.

It’s a tiny square of fabric, muted yellow, covered in delicate, embroidered dandelions. You’d cut out this square from the tie in the back of your dress, done in a rage when your aunt decided she’d donate the garment to Goodwill after your growth spurt.

Suddenly, you’re sinking onto the bed and pulling out your phone, that same molecule of deja vu making its way back home, and you’re typing out a song title that has forever been branded into the archives of your memory.

You’ve allowed yourself bits and pieces of recollection, too convinced that this time was too good to be true, that you’d ruin it if you ever allowed yourself to re-live it completely. You’d come to terms with never listening to the full song, to only allow the minute flashbacks to cross your mind, never daring to pluck out the beautiful little details.

You’re not sure you ever were that girl in the park, you sure as hell don’t feel like any of her is still in you. But he’d grown up, and that same little boy still lived in his heart, and you can’t help but wonder if somehow the same happened with you.

You press play on the video, the video that was made for you, about you. You’ve seen the beginning before, back when you didn’t know him, and you can’t believe you didn’t realize it was him immediately. You also can’t believe you didn’t realize then what the charm tied elegantly around his throat was.

You do now — a gold plated dandelion leaf.

And now here, on the very worst day of your existence, you’re finally going to allow Jaehyun to tell you about your best.

> _I still remember it, the girl with the yellow ribbon in her hair,_
> 
> _the merry laughter of the stars, formed in a spotlight for her there._
> 
> _I was the secret, a hidden shadow tucked into the night,_
> 
> _but she was all of the sunshine in the moonlight_

> _Strangers, that’s how it always starts, huh?_
> 
> _But I wouldn’t ever be satisfied with not knowing her._
> 
> _She was a classic movie, untouched by time,_
> 
> _One I could never fast forward to the credits of._

The jarring sound of a shutter snap almost sends you tumbling from where you’re sitting. You glance to the swing on your left, but there’s no one there. When you look to your right, however, there’s someone else, camera trained on your face.

“What are you doing?” You question this unknown person, and they lower their camera, revealing themselves to be a boy who must be your age.

You’ve never understood why girls in your classes found boys cute, but you kind of get it now. This boy is smiling at you, two little poky spots visible in his cheeks, and he has a full head of shiny black hair. He has a round face, chubbier than the moon behind you if it was full, and he’s dressed like a funny little grandpa, in a red and white striped shirt and brown shorts.

“It’s a Polaroid,” he shrugs, holding it out for you to see. “You take a picture and it comes out here.”

“I know what a Polaroid camera is,” you show off, though your fingernail is digging into your thumb with nerves. “Why are you taking a picture of me?”

He’s shaking the little square of film now, handing it over for you to see complete blackness, save for one little C of light in the center of it. “I’m taking a picture of the moon. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“It’s okay.”

The boy cocks his head to the left, chewing a bit on his lip as he continues to look at you. Then, he asks, “What’s your name?”

Your eyes fly open at his question, the nerves from before billowing into a thousand butterflies in your tummy. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d ever do anything to you, but you’ve only met him five seconds ago, and you don’t know him.

His lip pouts out. “You don’t have a name?”

“My aunt told me that since I’m new here, I shouldn’t talk to strangers,” you mumble, recalling very clearly what Aunt Clara had drummed into your head on your way home from the airport. “I’m not even supposed to be out here, not really.”

You sit there in silence for a few seconds, just looking at each other.

“You’re not going to tell me your name?” He confirms, not quite sure that’s what you’re saying, and you shake your head. The kid shrugs, undeterred. “Okay, well I don’t care about that, my name is JJ.”

JJ. It sort of fits him, the loops of the Js are as round as his cheeks. You wonder what it stands for.

“I’ve never seen you here before. I live in the apartments across the street and play here all the time,” he points across the empty road, to a nondescript looking building that looks just like yours.

“I just moved here,” you jerk your thumb back to the complex that’s right by the little park. “To live with my aunt and uncle. I start 5th grade at Riverside tomorrow.”

You don’t know anything about Riverside, whether the kids there are nice or if the cafeteria serves good food, all you really know is that you didn’t want to leave your school back in Dallas, didn’t want to come here to Los Angeles at all. Maybe JJ will be someone at your school…

“Oh, I’m in 5th grade too! That’s cool! I go to Lakeview, though.”

So much for that.

“My cousin is here, and she’s my age, so we’ll go to school together,” you think of how cool Wendy is, how Aunt Clara and Uncle Charlie let her get blonde highlights already. You can’t help your enthusiasm. “I’m excited I get someone to play with.”

“You can play with me, too!” JJ bursts out, swinging his little legs in the seat happily.

“I don’t even know you.”

“Well, you know that my name is JJ. I like singing! And lemons!”

Your nose wrinkles. “Lemons, ew, why?”

“Lemons are a seriously misunderstood fruit,” he proclaims it solemnly, like he’s a Sunday preacher. He pulls out a stack of something from the pocket of his shorts and flips through it, before he hands you another Polaroid. “Look, these are the lemon bars that my mom made the other day.”

His hands are overflowing with the squares of film, shiny and eye-catching, and you want to look through them all.

“Do you take pictures of everything?” You ask.

“Yup, pretty much, I take them everywhere I go,” he fans them out on his leg so he can explain what each one is. “That’s my mom, my dad, my grandma, my grandma’s dog Winnie…”

You pore over the slightly blurry snaps, one of a stunning older couple, their warm smiles identical to the one you see in the boy across from you, next, an elegant grey-haired lady with a shaggy pup at her feet. The cutest picture is the one with all five of them posing with peace signs on a huge, beige couch.

“You have a big family,” you marvel at them, how happy they look. “Wow.”

“I mean you get to live with your aunt and uncle. That’s so cool,” he sighs, like you’re living the most enviable life ever.

You suppose Aunt Clara and Uncle Charlie are nice enough, but they’re not your parents. They don’t know that you like two pillows when you sleep at night, and there’s not a single carton of cookies n’ cream ice cream in the freezer.

“Yeah, but I miss my mom and dad,” you don’t want to cry in front of him, but you feel like you’re going to.

His forehead goes all wrinkly. “Why? They’re not here with you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

You shrug. “I don’t know.”

All you can really remember is your mom in her fancy sunglasses, patting you on the head as the United worker came to retrieve you at the security line. _Be good with auntie for mommy, okay? We’ll call you soon. You’re going to love LA._ You think your dad looked sad, but you’re not really sure.

You can’t tell this JJ this, but you’d heard your mom screaming on the phone for weeks before she’d randomly told you you’d be moving to California. You were scared at first, thinking she was fighting with your dad, but one time you saw her on the new laptop with the big webcam attached, a red-faced Aunt Clara on the screen. _I need this for me!_ Your mom was saying. _She’ll be fine with you._ You don’t know what any of that means, you just know that you’re here now.

“I’m sure my mom would want to be your mom too,” JJ states confidently, patting you on the arm. “You should come over sometime. I know that I’m a stranger, but I promise you, you’d really like her lemon bars.”

He looks so proud of himself for offering that up, so happy to be here with you, that you can’t help but grin at him shyly,

“Okay. Maybe sometime.”

> _How many things was she all wrapped into one?_
> 
> _Each part of her a drifting dandelion seed,_
> 
> _All of her tart and sour and sweet; lovely, lovelier, loveliest,_
> 
> _the loveliest girl I could ever think to meet_

> _Lovely and lonely, go together hand in hand,_
> 
> _The exact intersection of me that she understood perfectly._
> 
> _I’d like to think that we each felt less alone,_
> 
> _We’d never had someone, like that, just to have._

Your forehead is pressed into the metal links holding up the swing, hoping the cool metal will help you feel less stressed out, when you hear a familiar voice,

“How was your first day at school?”

JJ has once again taken his place on the swing beside yours. Today he’s in a purple Lakers jersey, making his body look like a plump grape, but his dimply smile is still the same.

“Mm,” you hum, not sure how to put into words how it had gone.

“Oh,” he reads through the sound. “Bad?”

It wasn’t terrible, but no one had talked to you at recess and you ended up at a lunch table alone. That wasn’t eat in the bathroom levels of bad, but just bad enough that you weren’t in a good mood right now. It didn’t help that Wendy purposefully did not sit next to you on the bus. That’s what you’d been most looking forward to.

“How’d you know?” You’re curious as to how he’d picked up on that.

He swings a little, dragging his sneakers in the mulch. “That’s how I answer my mom when I have a bad day.”

 _“_ It’s just hard to be here with no friends,” you sigh forlornly, thinking of your best friend Luna, still in Dallas. “I want to go back home.”

“I have friends and stuff, but there are a lot of times when I feel like I’m by myself! It’s okay!” JJ chirps, trying to pump you up and make you smile. Then he leans his head in towards you, whispering, “Whenever I have a bad day, my mom and I make up poems or nursery rhymes. Don’t tell anyone, because that’s like something five year olds do. But I like it.”

You’ve learned a little bit about poems in school, but you don’t know exactly what kind JJ is talking about. “Poems like what?”

“I don’t know, anything that rhymes. You know like, roses are red, violets are blue…”

“I guess.”

“Like, here. This is the one we made up last week,” he twists the chain in his swing so he can face you directly, then he clears his throat. “Yellow and tart, a slice of lemon pie, cross my heart and hope to die!

He uses his thumb to cross an x over his heart when he says the words, and you don’t feel as sad anymore.

You have to ask, “What does dying have to do with lemon pie?”

“I don’t know but it’s funny!” He laughs, high and bright, then he pokes you. “Try it.”

“Yellow and tart, a slice of lemon pie, cross my heart and hope to die!” You warble back in an echo, and you can feel your cheeks start to burn with laughter, a little ray of sunshine even in the night. “That’s funny.”

“You should make one up, too.”

JJ wants you to play this cherished game with him, and you start to pick at the skin of your thumb in nervousness. You want this to be good, you can’t have him assuming you’re not taking this seriously. You’re not good at this, he has some kind of adult talent in making up these funny rhymes, and you think and think and finally you just blurt,

“Roses are red, will you be my friend, til we’re old and wrinkly, until the sparkly end?”

“I mean, of course we’ll be friends until we’re old and wrinkly,” JJ giggles at the idea of both of you being old. Then, he asks, “But what does that last part mean?”

You freeze. You hadn’t meant to say that.

“It’s just, it’s just something I made up,” you explain in a quiet voice, not wanting him to think you’re weird.

“Okay. And?”

He wants you to tell it all to him, so you shuffle your feet in the mulch before you murmur, “I mean, we go to heaven when we die right? That means we become stars or something? So even then, we can be star-friends, sparkly in the sky together.”

JJ looks at you, then looks up at the sky — to the dozens of twinkling dots dancing by the moon — back to you, back to the sky, and then his face lights up completely.

“Oh, I get it!”

“Til the sparkly end?” You offer again, tentatively, because you think he’d make the brightest star of all.

He reaches out from his swing and grabs your hand, kicking both of you into motion so you can swing back and forth in unison. Then, he mimes an x over his chest.

“Til the sparkly end, cross my heart.”

He’s apparently a kid who keeps his promises, because he shows up at the park the next night and brings his Gameboy so you can play Pokemon for the first time. He tells you about how he’s learning guitar, and you impress him by knowing the Lakers won three championships in a row a few years ago.

You run around the playground like crazy hooligans, and when he falls and skins his knee, you press a kiss to the skin there like Aunt Clara had done to you when you cut your finger on a moving box. You play hide and seek and _Harry Potter_ _Wizards_ and he must take a bajillionty-one Polaroids of you. You know it’s a bajillionty-one because he can’t fit all of the little squares of film into his pants pockets anymore.

You like having your own friend here.

> _Funny how goodbye has good in it,_
> 
> _Double bar of our symphony at the end of the page._
> 
> _Too early for those noble words, til death do we part,_
> 
> _But lemon silk will stand watch until age has filled our hearts._

By the time that Friday rolls around, you’re already sitting on your assigned swing in anticipation, straining your eyes in the dusky light to see if JJ’s on his way out of his apartment building. Today, he doesn’t come out in the same lumbering skip that he usually does, he’s walking awkwardly, back held in a straight line.

You quickly look down at your dress, your favorite one, in this bright yellow with dandelions all over it, and wipe away some of the dirt that you see. You’d worn it to look nice.

He walks into the park, and you notice that he’s wearing his backpack today. But instead of coming to the swings, he sits on the platform by the slide. He beckons you over with a wave, and you get up and go sit by him. He carefully removes the bag and unzips it, pulling out a plate covered in a paper towel.

He removes the white covering to reveal the most pristinely yellow cupcake, a little squashed, but still a tempting little bite of dessert.

“What is the cupcake for?” You wonder out loud as he places it into the space between you.

“Today was my last day at school.”

Cold dread fills your heart, and you don’t like the feeling, not at all. This is like when you see a spider in the shower, or when the gym teacher says you’re going to be running laps today. Not JJ, not him too.

“What,” you gasp. “Why?”

“I’m moving to New York tomorrow,” he reveals the truth softly, mumbling it to the confection between you two because he can’t look at your eyes. “I’m going to music school.”

You want to be happy, because he seems like he deserves it, and his voice had been _so_ pretty yesterday when he’d sang you a little bit of this Backstreet Boys song. But he’s your friend, you’re supposed to grow old together til you’re old and wrinkly. You can’t do that if he’s in New York when you’re in California.

“Oh,” you breathe out because you’re not sure exactly what to say. “You didn’t tell me anything.”

“I didn’t want to make you sad. That’s why I brought the cupcake for us to share,” JJ’s talking to you at a million miles per hour as he brandishes a plastic knife. “Let me cut it.”

He slices the cupcake straight through, but he must’ve missed because there is one large piece and one tiny one.

“That’s not even!” You huff in frustration, and JJ just laughs.

“I did that on purpose,” he proclaims, then points to the bigger piece. “I want you to have that half.”

“That’s too much, JJ!” You protest, then shove the plate away from you, twisting it so that the smaller piece is facing in your direction.

“No, take it.” He pushes it back.

“Take it.”

“Take it!”

Finally, you give up and cram the piece of cupcake into your mouth in one bite. You realize that it’s a lemon cupcake when the deliciously sour pastry explodes into your taste buds.

He teasingly taunts you, “Ha, you can’t fight me!”

JJ sticks the other piece in his mouth in one go, though it’s less of a struggle for him to do it than it was for you, and the two of you savor the sweet in silence.

“New York, huh? That’s going to be so different,” you muse out loud as you lean your head onto his shoulder.

“I know, I won’t know anyone at my school, just like you did,” you feel his head rest on yours, then his finger poking at your cheek.

“I wish I was moving with you,” you confess, unable to keep the sadness out of your voice. “Then at least I’d know someone.”

“That reminds me, this is for you!” JJ sits up suddenly, his head knocking into yours with a thud, but he’s off digging away in the big pocket of his backpack. He pulls something out with a flourish and presents it to you. “It’s not much, but I thought it was pretty. It matches your dress!”

It’s nothing much, just a long snippet of silky ribbon, but he’s right, it’s the exact same shade of yellow as the fabric of your dress. You feel overwhelmed by something, what, you don’t know, but there’s recognizable panic bouncing in you. You hadn’t known he was leaving, otherwise you would’ve asked Uncle Charlie to take you to the store and get him something.

“I, I don’t have anything for you, I didn’t know,” you whisper in a frenzy, looking all over the place to see if there’s anything you can give to him in return. Some flowers, a pretty rock, anything.

An idea sparks into your brain.

Reaching into his backpack, you rummage through his books and papers, pulling out his pencil pouch. You sift through his trinkets, then you find what you need, a shiny pair of scissors.

“What, what are you doing?” He watches in confusion as you place the ribbon carefully between the blades of the scissors, and snip it neatly in two.

You hold up the two identical streamers in front of you, and you feel your cheeks growing hot as you explain, “That way, you can have some of it too.”

Before you decide not to, your hand darts out and grabs his wrist, and you carefully fasten the strip of sunshine there, wrapping it around twice and tying it in a neat bow. Even in the low light, you can see how his chubby cheeks are pink, and he giggles nervously when you pat his fingers with yours.

Once you’re done, he stands up carefully and takes the ribbon from you. He places a warm hand on the top of your head, then very gently loops the ribbon through the tie holding your hair up, ornamenting you in a very cheery, matching bow.

When he sits back down, his eyes are glassy, and he can barely get the words out. “Wait, so this is like, the very last time I’ll ever see you?”

“I don’t know,” you admit sadly, because New York is so, so far away. “I can give you my aunt’s email, or something. I don’t know our new house’s phone number.”

You glance back up at JJ, and there are tears spilling down his face, tracking down to the mulch in twin rivers of sorrow.

“Are you, are you crying?”

“I’m sad,” he half wails, half cries. “I don’t want to forget you.”

“You won’t!” You scramble to end the tears, to have him back as the happy JJ you know. “Cross my heart!”

“But what if I do?” He sniffles, like the idea is the worst thing ever for him.

You’re about two seconds away from crying yourself, you don’t want to let him go, if you could you’d tell his parents to go away by themselves and leave him all to you. But that’s not how real big people work. He’s going to have to go with them, no matter what.

You peek at his backpack, and that gives you a thought. “Do you have your camera? Maybe we can take a picture?”

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” JJ chirps happily, tears instantly subsiding as he starts to search for the device. “We should take two so I can have one and you can have one.”

You nod. You’d like to have a memory of it, too. “Okay.”

He pulls out the Polaroid and shifts to his side so he can prop it up on the playground step behind you. You start to turn too, to face where the lens is pointing, but then you feel his arm around you, turning you back the other way.

“What are you doing?” You inquire as he arranges himself next to you. “Shouldn’t you take them both from the front?”

“I’ll take one from behind and one from the front, so that together they make up the whole picture!” JJ proposes that you do it this way, and you kind of really like it. “Also, we’ll be the only ones in the world with that picture, then.”

He’s convinced you this easily, so you let him do exactly what he wants. More than that, you can’t get over the way his hand feels on your shoulder, especially when the skin of your cheek brushes right by it when you turn your head.

“I’m pressing it now!” He warns, there’s a slight delay enough for him to pull his arm back, and then the shutter snaps.

He eagerly retrieves the film and shakes it back and forth, his cheeks jiggling as he exerts the effort. Even though he’d been forced to twist awkwardly to get the picture, it comes out kind of perfect. There’s a trio of eye-catching comets of yellow, the two strips of ribbon plus your dress, but you are enamored with the way your hair falls out of your ponytail, the way his arm slopes around you.

“Ready?” JJ is holding the camera out in front of you now, and you paint on your cheeriest smile for him. “Three, two, one, smile!”

You’re more impatient for this one than you’d been for the first, and you soon see why. The crescent moon is neatly watching over you in the upper corner of the film, but you and JJ are beaming from ear to ear, faces about to split completely apart with the depths of your joy. He still has his arm around you, and your head is tilted into his, and you could be the center of the universe right here, right now.

“I love it,” you breathe out. You’ve never loved anything like you love this little picture.

“Really?” His eyes are twinkling brighter than the stars you’ll become.

“Yeah.”

“You keep this one, then,” he pushes the image into your hand, closing your fingers around it.

JJ is staring at you in this way, a gaze you’ve never seen before from anyone, and you feel like there’s a bright spotlight shining down right on you.

“JJ!” A woman’s voice yells, and the two of you both look to see his mother waving from the other side of the road. “JJ, it’s time for bed, I told you not to be out here this late!”

This is it, this is the very last time you’ll ever see JJ again, this means he’s going to New York.

He gets up slowly, sadly, offering up one wave and nothing else before he begins his trek back to his mother.

You can’t let him go just like this, there’s so much more you want to do, so many words in your mouth and in your heart, and he is the best friend you’ve ever had. If this is goodbye, it can’t go just like this.

“JJ!” You call, and he stops at the very edge of the park.

You fly towards him, a whirlwind of childish affection, and you hug him tightly, your arms squeezing his small frame. Though he’s shorter than you, the amount of warmth he pours into his return embrace is more than the sun could ever give you.

You kiss him on the cheek, just once, and whisper, “Goodbye.”

> _I still remember it, the girl with the yellow ribbon in her hair,_
> 
> _the merry laughter of the stars, formed in a spotlight for her there._
> 
> _I was the secret, a hidden shadow tucked into the night,_
> 
> _but she was all of the sunshine in the moonlight_

> _So, now, on nights when that moonlight is particularly divine,_
> 
> _I tell myself I can feel the rays of all your sunshine._
> 
> _I know you’re under the same moon, wherever you are out there,_
> 
> _and I hope you’re doing well, my yellow ribbon still in your hair_

You don’t realize you’re sobbing, making a scene in the middle of your bedroom, until you catch a glimpse of your splotchy face in the mirror on the wall.

Jaehyun Jung was your first love.

You’d always wanted to deny it, to heft the blame on him and say that he was the only one who had had these feelings. But you can’t anymore. You’ve been in love with him since the moment he threw caution to the wind to tell you his name, the instant he befriended you without having a care who you were. You'd been lost and alone and so terrified of being you, and he was there for you through it all.

You must experience every emotion possible as you curl up into your sheets, your teardrops freckling the pillowcase with moisture.

Anguish, that you weren’t able to remain as kind as good as you once were. That everything that’s happened to you in your life _has_ had an effect on you, no matter how much you’ve tried to deny it. That as much as you desperately want her to make a re-appearance, the untouched ten-year old you might never be part of real you ever again.

Guilt, because you’d told yourself time after time that you were just putting others first, that you were just doing your job, just doing what you had to, that they could trust you. But look at this mess now. This is at least five people’s lives you stuck your greasy little paws into, pulled the strings of and manipulated and none of you turned out for the better.

There’s sprinkles of other things, heartbreak, isolation, _desperation._

But you’re filled with mostly regret, because you had the best man, maybe ever, and you turned him into a villain.

Jaehyun has done nothing wrong. He hasn’t. All he’s done is simply clung onto the hope that the purest outlines of childhood adoration still exists in adulthood. His vision of you as a ten year old had been painted over with the artful brush of true love, and that painting has sat in the museum of him ever since. 

He hadn’t written this song as a kid and then re-recorded it in the present. He’d remembered that week in a studio in LA, and been so struck by the memory of you he’d instantly sculpted his most wondrous masterpiece. He probably kept you on that pedestal because it was the one thing that made him feel normal, the one life raft buoyed in the ocean of falsehoods that’s the industry he’s in.

His only mistake, and it’s not really a mistake at all, was having the presence of mind to grow up into an adult that his young self would be proud of.

You can only hope that you haven’t ruined for him. That he’ll still be able to maintain a semblance of that innocence going forward, that he won’t look at a woman he likes and think of the way that you lied to him. That he’d be able to fall in love and give his heart to someone freely without having the worry that they might be chasing after something that isn’t him.

You hope all the songs he writes from here on out are as beautiful and as magical as the story he’s told about you. Because he told it perfectly. Though you can’t imagine it’d be hard to, because that week was perfect.

And, of course, you finally understand why Mark’s listened to this song one hundred thousand times. You’d run that number to the dust by the end of the night, you think.

You wipe away your errant tears with the sleeve of your sweater, though you can’t do anything about the swollen devastation of your face. You can’t hide in here forever, your family’s expecting you for dinner, so you trudge into the kitchen, face covered by a curtain of your hair, and pick up a bowl of soup.

You catch the way your uncle looks at your aunt in concern when you tie your hair back so it won’t get in your bowl, but he only opens the conversation with, “How is work?”

Your eyes flutter shut and you let out a huge sigh, voice watery as you honestly answer,“Not good. I think I’m going to have to find a new job soon.”

This has been a gigantic ten minutes for introspection, you can’t honestly be okay with yourself remaining in Joshua’s employment. You won’t be a mouthpiece for a person like that - though he might not be a _bad_ person, you’re very sure he’s not a good one. You want to work with somebody nice, somebody who won’t force you to help them with their fake relationship for clout. Somebody you won’t end up liking either, you note with an extremely ironic internal laugh.

The internal laugh continues when you recognize that you aren't half as broken down about Joshua as you are about Jaehyun. Seriously, you're just pissed that Joshua risked embarrassing you in your job more than anything. With Jaehyun, well, that cuts so much deeper.

“Well, no matter where you end up, I’m sure you’ll succeed,” Aunt Clara offers in support, and Uncle Charlie nods. “We are really proud of you.”

Your heart squeezes itself into strangulation.

“Yeah, I know we didn’t say it a lot growing up,” your aunt continues quietly, fidgeting with her napkin. “But you really, you turned into to something else. It’s a shame my sister never wanted to appreciate you.”

“Do you know?” You blurt without thinking, attacked by a fresh onslaught of frigid tears. “Why they didn’t want me?”

“Yes,” you uncle practically spits, and you look up in surprise.

The three of you had always danced around this topic, none of you having quite the answers you wanted, so this is something new. You’re not sure you can take another personal blow.

“Because they were selfish assholes, who should’ve never had a child to begin with,” he curses, face purpling with effort as he tries to control himself. “That’s all we’ve ever known, and all you should need, too. But they gave us you. You’re a wonderful young woman.”

Your bowl of soup is surely ruined with the salt of your tears, weeping plainly for the life you’d never gotten to live, the life now that’s fractured apart all because of one selfish decision. It’s dramatic and necessary and cathartic. Though you know that you’ll never understand why your parents did what they did, you can truly see your aunt and uncle just doing their best to protect you.

“I don’t think I am,” you choke out between your sniffs. “I don’t think so.”

“Yes, you are,” Aunt Clara is crying in sympathy, and reaches out to grab your hand across the table. “You’re loved by so many people. That wouldn’t be possible if you weren’t a good person.”

She has to be right. She loves you, your uncle loves you, Mark and Ten both love you. And Jaehyun, he loved you too.

“I still think you’re this big, sometimes. Gosh. Both of you,” Uncle Charlie wipes away a stoic tear as he looks at a picture frame that had been sitting on the table. “You had it tough sometimes when you were a kid, and we’re sorry for that. But you made it. You did.”

He puts the frame down on the table, and you see the image you know you remembered, of you sitting on the front step of that old apartment building. The matching pink and yellow dresses, so indicative of the kind of girls you were, the unhappy frowns that were not just because of a forced picture.

But you’re looking at it differently now, you’re not quite as mad in this as you are confused, still feeling like you’re off-course out in the world without your family. And Wendy does not look as annoyed, but rather worried, because that whole situation was as new to her as it was to you.

Your dress is probably the most you thing you’ve ever owned, because you feel like a dandelion. You might’ve lost your seeds, but new parts of the old you will spring up soon enough.

“Thank you,” you murmur, finally okay with all of all of it. “I’m sorry. And I’ll try to visit more.”

Aunt Clara ladles you a fresh bowl of soup and there’s just something about coming here, coming _home_.

You’ll finish dinner first, but you have a dozen important phone calls to make, and an even more important text you have to send first.

> [9:43 pm] **you:** for their sake, we should clear the air. my place for lunch tomorrow?

—

You nervously bounce the carton of soup in your hands as you walk to your apartment form your parked car the next morning. You don’t have much time left, and feel woefully underprepared about it all, even more so when someone recognizes you on the sidewalk.

“Y/n?”

You whip your head to the side, and there’s only one person that tall who would know your name.

“CY,” it’s definitely his same old cheeky grin underneath his Islanders cap. “It’s good to see you. What are you doing in LA?”

“My fiancée’s from around here, it’s her dad’s birthday this weekend. Coach gave me permission to come since we’re off ’til Tuesday,” he explains, panting, and you realize he’s probably just out for his morning conditioning run.

You also clearly pick up on the fact that CY is engaged now, a fact that would’ve bothered you yesterday, most likely, but now only brings you a sort of peaceful happiness and closure.

“Congratulations,” you offer genuinely. “That is so awesome.”

“You still doing social media PR?” He asks you, and you realize this is also the first time you’ve talked since he was traded. That feels like it was a supernova of a lifetime ago.

“Yeah, Joshua Hong’s team,” you tell him as try to prevent your lip from curling in annoyance.

“Oof, sorry about that fight when we were in town,” he chuckles, taking his hat off to run his hand through his hair in embarrassment. “You always had the worst time when I got into fights.”

You burst out laughing, because CY had been worse than Joshua on Instagram after fights, always getting into it with commenters, always sending you diving for your phone so you could clean up after him.

Your mouth moves in a ghost of a phrase that you know, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

CY shifts back and forth while he taps at something on his phone, and you can’t help but curiously ask,

“You still like to listen to that Baekhyun guy when you run?”

He used to blast the melodic Korean balladeer in the weight room as he did work on the treadmill, but you’re not sure why you’re suddenly curious about his music tastes.

“Yeah, I do, but I’ve been obsessed with this one other song recently,” he starts to turn his phone to show you what’s playing through his AirPods, but you kind of already know.

“Let me guess,” you deadpan. “ _sunshine in the moonlight_?”

CY’s eyebrows shoot up, and perhaps you really should openly dabble in other genres of music besides rap. “You know it?”

“Yeah.” You sigh a bit wistfully, and you don’t know why you’re compelled to blurt, “It’s about me, if you can believe it.”

“I can,” CY admits, out loud.

You cough a little, “What?”

His shoe toes at a little bit of grass in the crack of the sidewalk, then he fixes you with a poignant smile, “You deserve the kind of guy who would dedicate every goal they score to you. Back then? I was an idiot.”

Oh.

CY hugs you lightly, wrapping his arms around you for a second, and then he sniffs just once, “I’ve gotta go, but it was really nice to see you.”

The corner of your mouth turns up in a smile. “You too. Congratulations again.”

Perhaps seeing CY was exactly what you needed, because your heart doesn’t even race when you see Wendy waiting for you outside of your apartment’s door.

She doesn’t smile at you, but her, “Hi,” isn’t harsh.

“Hi,” you greet her as you unlock your front door. “Thanks for coming.”

“So, you went to see mom and dad yesterday?” She questions you as she takes off her heels in your entryway, and you’re trying to grapple with the fact that she’s actually in your home making small talk with you.

“Yeah, needed a night away from the city,” you keep things vague, not wanting to scare her off before this starts. “Had to think about some things.”

There’s a soft knock on your still open door. “Yo. One Lia Choi, as promised.”

There’s Mark in his work suit, clearly here on his lunch break, and there is Lia, eyeing you suspiciously from behind Mark. You hadn’t been sure he’d be able to pull this off when you called him with your idea last night, but you have to know by now that Mark always pulls through for you. No matter what.

“I owe you big time,” you whisper once Lia has tentatively made her way inside your apartment.

Mark ruffles your hair. “No, you don’t.”

You take a deep breath, and then you go back inside.

“Okay,” you don’t even give yourself time to second guess it before you’re speaking. “I know none of us like each other, but there is a really important conversation we need to have. I know the kind of people we are, we’re going to start arguing thirty seconds in, so you have to let me go first, because there’s something you need to know.”

Wendy glances at you from where she’s sitting on her couch, then caves, “Alright.”

“Fine,” Lia relents once Wendy surreptitiously nudges her in the side.

You drag a stool over from your kitchen island, wanting to give them space and also not wanting to be close enough to Lia that she has an avenue to hit you, then you reveal,

“Yes, I did have a relationship with Joshua that was more than just professional, but I did not know that you did as well. I was always under the impression it was just business between the two of you.”

Lia immediately starts to go off, “But he told me that you knew…”

Wendy, surprisingly, cuts her off with a loud _shh_ , then, “Just let her finish, babe. It’s okay.”

You look to your cousin in gratitude, then sadly admit to Lia, “He lied. He probably lied to you about everything, like he did to me.”

This is the second to last time you ever want to tell this story, but you’re going to have to put in as much gruesome detail as possible to get her to believe you.

“I met him two years ago when I joined Ten and the team, and the first time we slept together was that year’s Christmas ball.At first it was just a bit of fun, but soon we were together all the time and he was promising me that we’d be together publicly if I just waited a little longer. Sound familiar?”

She’s already crying, and you know your story hits her a little too close to home.

“At first it was waiting until the end of his season, then it was until the preseason, and then your team approached us about getting you two together. I couldn’t say no, because we were a secret, and he promised me that by New Years’ he’d try to end things with you. He told me that he went to Max Shim and begged to have it be done with, that it ended up in a brutal screaming match and Max saying no.”

She sniffs particularly loudly, and then whispers in a teary voice, “He did, he went to Max, but to ask if it was okay for us to actually date.”

You’ve never hated anyone, ever, but by god is this man making it hard for you not to do so.

“Anyways,” you sigh, trying not to let another one of his lies get to you. “That turned into waiting for the All-Star break, then until after your movie promos were done. I swear I never knew anything about what you two were doing beyond what I was setting up for you guys and what I saw in person. The only thing that was off was that day Joshua got into a fight and you didn’t show up to dinner.”

“Yeah, I wanted to surprise him at the game, but his personal tickets were already used. I blew up and thought it was you,” Lia’s mouth trembles as the reality of it all is starting to crush her back down.

“I was there,” you tell her, and she frowns in confusion. “But I paid for the tickets myself. There’s something else.”

You release your clenched fist, nail springing free from where it’d been trying to dig into the bandaid on your thumb, and pull out your phone.

“This is not illegal, perhaps questionably immoral, but I always had Joshua’s passwords because I needed access to all his accounts.”

You’d found this account late into your Instagram snooping last night, a private one with a username you’d recognized. You’d gone back and forth between wanting to go into Joshua’s accounts and trying to stay away, but in the end you’d bitten your tongue and just done it. What you’re showing her now will seal the deal for you all.

You’ve had time to process it, but you’re experiencing the fresh disappointment once again as you watch Lia register the image on your phone. You know how’ll upset she’ll be when she sees just how brightly the girl in the picture is smiling, how angry she’ll be when she reads the caption. How devastated she’ll be when she sees the comment.

> **@rosie_ringaroundthe:** sooooooo happy to be back in LA to cheer on my man. go kings goooo  
>  **@hong94:** love u baby

“Y/n, what is this?” She asks in a shaky voice, the picture of Rosie in her Kings jersey wobbling in her hand.

“This is Joshua’s girlfriend.”

“No,” Lia gasps, frantically scrolling up and down on your phone. “No, no, no.”

“I was out to dinner and ran into some people from the team I knew, and they showed up together. He had no idea that I was going to be there,” you allow the angry edge to bite into your words, allow yourself to cherish the way Wendy’s eyes widen in shock and sympathy.

“H-how?”

This hurt you, but it might ruin her. “I don’t know if you want to know.”

“Tell me!”

You specify the gory intimacy of it all in a quiet voice, “They knew each other in high school and he re-connected with her through Instagram. They met up during his road trip to Miami, and the rest is history. He called her his first love.”

Lia’s eyes flutter closed, and she starts _sobbing._

You keep going, “He came to my house afterwards, and I offered to contact your team to end things, since I figured it wouldn’t matter. He told me he’d do it but I’m assuming he lied about that, too.”

“How could this happen!” She practically shrieks, gripping Wendy’s hand for dear life. “How could I even believe she’s real?”

> [1:13 pm] **you** : now or never

“She’s real, Lia,” you resign yourself to that fact. “She’s real.”

There’s a curt rap on your door, and they’re right on time. You excuse yourself from the conversation, “I’ll get that.”

“Thanks, Mark…” you start as you open the door, then the sentence collapses on your tongue. “J-Jaehyun. Hi.”

You’d never be able to miss that Islanders cap anywhere, and you notice the dark circles stamped deeply underneath his eyes, as if he’s had the same sleepless night you’d just had.

His smile is a little tired, a little worn. “Hey.”

You honestly thought you’d never see him again, certainly wasn’t expecting him to turn up outside of your door. After all, Mark had agreed to go pick up Rosie as soon as he’d brought Lia by. You hadn’t accounted for Jaehyun in your plans, at all.

“Jeff, where are we? Is this your place?” Rosie wanders up behind him, then her face brightens in recognition at you. “Oh, y/n, right?”

“Hi, Rosie. You might want to come in.”

She looks to Jaehyun, and he nods, and then she makes her way into your home. Mark had him in on this plan all along? You want to spill your guts to him in that instant, that you’ve listened to his song and that you really know what his heart is made out of, but now is not the right time.

“Are you going to be okay?” He asks you quietly, hand twitching at his side in his sympathetic anxiety towards you.

“Yeah,” and you don’t just mean about this whole thing. “Thank you.”

He nods his head silently, and holds the door open for you so you can go inside.

“When Jeff said he wanted to get lunch and talk about his music, I didn’t think we’d end up coming here!” Rosie is tittering as she takes off her sandals. She looks up, recognizing your other guests in an instance, “Oh? Lia Choi? Wendy Shon? Oh my gosh!”

She’s clearly star-struck and unassuming, and you almost feel a little bit bad for her. She’s been just as duped as all of you.

“Wine?” You rummage through the bottles on your cart, not letting your gaze linger too long on that framed photo.

She looks pleased as punch to be drinking wine with all of you, “White would be lovely.”

“As Josh’s social media manager,” you start carefully as you pour a glass and hand it over. “I just need to ask you a few questions to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

“Okay!”

You glance over at Lia, and she’s barely keeping it together.

“How long have you and Joshua been seeing each other?”

Rosie takes a sip of her wine, then shrugs, “I’m not sure exactly, it’s been a few months now.”

You take a large gulp of air, then drop the bomb, “And you are aware that he is in a current relationship with Ms. Choi?”

You, Wendy, and Lia all wait with baited breath as Rosie registers your question, but she just waves a hand.

“Oh, I mean I knew that it was just for the press. That was what he made sure I knew. What did he say exactly? Oh, you are my one and only first love, you know she doesn’t compare to you in any way,” she doesn’t catch that what she’s saying is insulting until it’s out of her mouth, then her hand flies to cover it. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re a lovely person.”

You can see the moment the volcano of Lia explodes, and she stands up and shouts, “He fucking lied!”

Rosie sloshes a little wine onto her skirt, then whispers, “What?”

“Thank you, Lia,” you pat the woman on the back to get her to sit back down. “I apologize for the outburst, but there are some things that you need to know.”

It’s your time to take charge, this is the no-nonsense y/n doing her best work, keeping it as professional as you can so that you can allow Lia to break down on her own,

“I had an intimate relationship with Joshua for the past year and a half. Around six months ago, Lia’s agency reached out to ours in order to set up a high-profile PR romance, and according to her, it became something more right from the start. He told both of us a lot of similar things, mostly that he loved us and wanted to be with us. And a lot of that lines up with what you’re telling us.”

Rosie’s mouth opens and closes like a fish, stunned into silence by what you’re telling her.

“I don’t know if it’s been limited to just the three of us, or if he’s been talking to more girls around LA or even the country. But I — _and me!,_ _Lia interjects_ — felt like you at least needed to have all the information, in order to make an informed decision about what you want to do. If you want to stay with him, that’s your prerogative. These are simply the facts, you can take them as they are.”

Rosie is shaking her head back and forth, murmuring to herself as she tries to put it all together, and Lia clearly is waiting for her turn to unleash the mountain of evidence she has piled up.

“I’ve said a lot, and I think you two might need a second to talk,” you bow your head in deference to the two of them, and you send a silent thanks to whoever allowed you to extract your feelings out in the way you did. “You are more than welcome to read our text exchange, it is on my phone there. I’m sure Lia has other materials she can provide.”

Rosie asks Lia something you can’t make out, and she whispers back angrily, and the two of them start going back and forth as you step back in a daze.

“What a fucking mess,” you mutter to yourself, and you catch Wendy’s rush of breath.

“I shouldn’t have told her I thought it was you,” Wendy acknowledges it faintly, so only you can hear. “I was just so mad, I’ve been mad about so much for so long, always thinking that you were liked more than me. I didn’t want to see it happen to Lia too, and I just acted like a crazy person. You wouldn’t lie about something like this, I know that.”

You shrug, though you appreciate and understand where she’s coming from. “I still hid that I was seeing him.”

“He fucked both of you over,” she bites out, and you look over to see her lip curled in disgust. “You wouldn’t have known. And she wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.”

That is the closest you’re going to get to a thank you from her, and somehow, it means even more.

“Thanks for coming,” you at least need to try to voice it yourself. “I think it helped for her that you were here. And I thought you should know, too.”

You’d never expected her to show up at your place just like that, and you know that it will be much easier for Lia to have her best friend here with here. You wish that Mark had been able to stay today. Jaehyun, too.

“Sure.”

“Listen, the Jae— Jeffrey thing,” you blab your emotions to her out loud, sorry for the turmoil you’ve caused her, but not sorry for the path your heart decided to stroll. “That was all blown out of proportion. Perhaps I liked him a little more than I should’ve, but nothing happened while you were dating. We didn’t… kiss or anything until after you were broken up.”

The tiniest part of her lip curves into a smile at the mention of your kiss, and she laughs a little, “I figured CY’s karma would come back to bite me one day.”

You’re finally in a place where you can laugh about that, laugh with her.

Then, “Wendy, there’s one more thing.”

“What,” she raises her eyebrow at you. “You’re finally going to tell me that you’re the _sunshine_ girl?”

Your jaw drops, bright apples of red embarrassment blocking onto your cheeks, “I, uh. Yeah.”

“The picture is on your wine cart,” she points over to where the sun through your bay window is glittering on the rose gold frame. “But I had a feeling. I knew I recognized that dress. And you almost called him Jaehyun then. He doesn’t let just anyone do that.”

She shows you the text on her phone, the picture of you two that you’d sent her last night. You spot the identical dresses on the you on her screen and the you in the photo with JJ.

JJ, Jaehyun, Jeffrey, you probably would’ve loved him no matter what he went by, even if he hadn’t given you his name that day.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Honestly, I’m happy for you,” Wendy volunteers without prompting, the first real smile you’ve seen from her in a long time. “You deserve someone like him.”

Her words are a mirror of CY’s, somehow everyone thinks you deserve someone just like Jaehyun. You’re still not sure that you do, but maybe this is a sign.

“Thanks,” you accept it, then let out a ragged sigh. “I think I fucked it up, though.”

You don’t need to explain just what’s gone down, all she needs to do is glance at you, and see just how much more torn up about this you are than about Joshua.

“Oh. That bad, huh?”

You smile grimly. “Worse.”

“That sucks. I’m. I’m sorry.”

You know your cousin well enough to know that she isn’t just saying sorry about Jaehyun.

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “I’m sorry, too.”

There’s no long-winded conversation you have to have, no argument or therapy session, or crushing embrace in the rain. It’s almost a little ironic that an event this devastating had to happen in order for the two of you to finally understand each other, but it doesn’t really matter. Wendy is sorry, and you are too, and though you might not ever have wholesome Sunday dinners with her going forward, you might not run when you see her at the Oscars next year.

You’re in the most comical tableau of existence, watching two girls sobbing on your couch with a sister-cousin that isn’t quite your friend, but isn’t your enemy anymore, yet you feel more okay with your life than you ever have.

—

“Please tell me why you’re no longer listed as attending the Kings gala tonight?” Ten can’t hide his incredulity, even over the phone.

Though a sly smile creeps up onto your face, you keep your tone casual, “Perhaps because I’m no longer an employee of a Kings player?”

He gasps loudly, “You are not dropping that information on me on a phone call like this.”

It’d been shockingly easy to move on from this chapter of your professional life. You’d begun culling your contacts for available positions in secret, and it was just your luck that your old position on Kyle Kuzma’s team was open once again. You’d lobbied for a position for Ten, unsure if he was as set on leaving as you were, and you’d presented him with the option to keave with you and join Kuz’s agent’s tactical team.

“I told you that Kyle had an opening on the team for both of us, you can still take the offer,” you point out. “It’s not like you don’t already have other clients, you’re just switching one out for another.”

“Basketball players scare me! They’re so tall,” Ten whines, but you’ve got him eating out of the palm of your hand.

“But at least Kuzma isn’t a fucking douche. To my knowledge.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

“Anyways, I probably shouldn’t show my face at that gala,” you joke, not sure you’re ready to face the firing squad.

Rosie had left your apartment the other day with no decision on what she was going to do, and you don’t think running into Josh would be good for your emotional health. You're not pining over him, not at all, you mostly just want to haughtily move past it all, turn in your resignation with your nose in the air and no more effort exerted on his peasant self. That'd be a waste of your own energy.

“I think you should come, for me. It’ll be your grand hurrah to the hockey world. I still have a plus one since Lisa isn’t here,” Ten pleads with you.

“I don’t know…” you trail off, still unsure.

“Okay, perfect, the car will pick you up at seven!”

You groan then, and you’re still groaning by the time the Range Rover pulls up outside of the hockey rink to reveal Ten’s grinning face.

He helps you out of the car as the bulky black skirt of your dress swirls around your feet, and you notice his unchanging expression. “Any particular reason you’re this thrilled I’m here?”

“No,” he feigns innocence. “I can’t be happy to see my friend?”

“No.”

You know him, and he can’t, so you have to be prepared for whatever’s coming.

The atrium of the arena has been completely transformed into this elegant ballroom, accents of the Kings’ silver and black draped everywhere, and there are already a ton of people littered throughout the space.

In the middle of it all is a small raised stage, and you know the person on it.

You’re sure the fact that Jaehyun is here is only a small part of why Ten can’t keep it together.

“Thank you, everyone, for being here, I’m Jeffrey Jung, I’m here to open up the 20th Annual LA Kings charity gala,” Jaehyun greets the crowd warmly, a natural on stage. “This is an event dedicated to LA and its people, and we are pleased to have many local artists set up throughout the lower level of the stadium as your entertainment for the evening. All money raised tonight will be going to the Kings Care Foundation, to support our Los Angeles based non profits.”

The crowd breaks off into a large round of applause as he passes off the microphone so Anze Kopitar can make his welcoming speech, and you don’t even have time to duck behind Ten before Jaehyun is right there.

Even in his classic black tuxedo, he is so luminously handsome, like he could’ve lit up every inch of the Staples Center himself.

“Hey.”

Jaehyun bumps fists with Ten, then turns to you, curve of his closed lips soft. “Hey. You enjoying the performances?”

You look to your left, where a crowd is already gathering around a duo of dancers, and reply, “I just got here. I haven’t been able to see much, to be honest.”

“Do you mind if I walk around with you guys?”

“Sure! Let’s go,” Ten claps him on the back like they’re buddies, and you trail behind them as they start to wander through the artist set-ups.

It’s fun amalgamation of a LA’s undiscovered talent, there’s those dancers, and a violinist, and a man painting a large canvas this beautiful shade of blue. Ten and Jaehyun chatter away as you walk through the stadium, and soon you’re approaching this huge group of people.

“Hmm, what’s that over there?” Ten cranes his neck to see what it is, and you can hear it, the group of men freestyle rapping over a beat that’s blasting through the nearby speaker.

The crowd is really into it, clapping along and hollering whenever there’s a particularly spicy line, and Ten pushes his way forward to get a better view of it all. That leaves you to linger behind with Jaehyun, but he doesn't have a care, currently standing up on his tiptoes to try and see what’s going on at the front.

The guy with the microphone spits out a particularly nasty bit of flow and then he turns the microphone towards the assembled people, “Anyone from the crowd interested in taking their turn on the mic?”

“Oooh, me, pick me!” Someone calls, thrusting their hand in the air right away, and the man with the microphone singles them out.

“You.”

The crowd parts slightly, so the newcomer can stand with the group of rappers, and you nearly topple out of your heels.

“Is that… Mark? What is he doing here?”

It’s definitely your best friend, you’d know his earnest little face anywhere, but why is he here? He hadn’t told you he was invited.

“Let’s go Mark!” Jaehyun screams from next to you, and you’re just so confused as to what’s going on.

Mark’s hopping up and down in place, hyping himself up, “Okay, here we go.”

The man plays the same beat from before, and Mark launches into a rap that you recognize as your ringtone for him:

 _Let me introduce you to some new thangs, I throw a straight punch right and left, wherever I go it’s a party, raise your glass like my birthday._ He’s spitting flames and the crowd is going nuts, but he doesn’t follow with the line that normally comes next on your phone, e _veryone kick up high, where ma roof at?_

Nope, not at all, because Mark raps straight into the microphone,

_Rosie, get the champagne, you might need more than a liter. You should plan to get drunk now that you know your boyfriend’s a cheater._

You’re not entirely sure you’ve heard that right.

The other rappers erupt in a cacophony of delighted OHHHHs, the people are loving it, and Mark takes a deep bow, announcing into the mic, “You can find me on Soundcloud at Marky with a y Mark, underscore flows of fury, no spaces! Thank you!”

The man in front of you moves to his left, and then you see it, you see Joshua and Rosie there, namely, Josh’s cratered jaw and Rosie’s displeased stare. Holy fuck.

“W-what?” Joshua splutters. “What is going on here?”

“You really think you could have two secret _girlfriends_ and never tell me?” Rosie’s voice is just loud enough that you can hear, that the rest of the gathering can catch exactly what she says. They stay, intrigued, giving you enough cover to continue hiding in the back. 

Lia is suddenly there, too, in her sky blue ballgown, and you can see Wendy’s blonde hair right next to her. “And you promised that we would be together for real!”

“How could you do this to me! You're such a piece of shit!” Rosie shoves Joshua away from her, disgusted, when he tries to reach for her.

“Yeah, how could you do this to me! Asshole!” Lia joins forces with her and the whole thing devolves into chaos.

The two of them start berating Joshua very loudly as Mark films the whole thing on his phone, the people around you clamor to look at the Kings player being publicly called out like this. You suppose this sort of scene shouldn’t have happened at a charity event, but it’s his own fault, and he kind of deserves it.

Joshua spots you through the crowd, silently begging you for help, and you take the liberty of just shrugging and waving. This is their fight, you're content to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

“E! is going to eat this up,” Jaehyun muses, entertained, and you gape at him.

“Did you, did you plan this?”

“No, I didn’t,” his ears go pink, just a little, but then he points over to Rosie. “I was just a pawn to be used by that criminal mastermind over there. She recruited all of us, for apparently the maximum humiliation possible.”

Huh. How about that.

“Mark was my plus one, Lia was Wendy’s since Josh got her taken off the list, and you were Ten’s,” he explains Rosie’s secret plan to you and now you understand why Ten had wanted you there. “She asked me if I knew anyone who’d be fine making a public scene, and you know I did.”

“That kid,” you shake your head as you laugh in disbelief. “Wow.”

“But I was just doing it for you,” he admits it so quietly you can barely make it out over the ruckus.

“For me? Why?”

“What was the quote?” He pauses for a second, before his dimple pops in a saucy and sassy tango. “Oh yeah, Joshua Hong is a fucker.”

That means he knows the truth. Jaehyun knows the truth and he tried to help you.

“You talked to Mark.”

He nods. “I talked to Mark.”

“Y/n, thank god, look at this!” Joshua practically bodyslams Jaehyun away from you so he can shove his phone at you.

Well, well. The devil works hard, but E!News _(and you suppose Mark)_ works harder.

You have no idea how this post has gotten up so fast. You’re going to have to remind yourself to save it when you can get onto Instagram later. The way Josh’s eyes are blown out of his face in horror in it is something you’re going to laugh about til the end of time.

> _**@enews:** EXCLUSIVE: Hockey player Joshua Hong was revealed to have numerous secret relationships, in addition to his publicly-known one with Lia Choi, when he was confronted today by the women at the LA Kings gala. Run, don’t walk, to the link in our bio to get all the sordid details_

“You’re my social media manager, why aren’t you getting that post off E! right now?” He demands, face red in rage as he continues to shake the device in your face.

You’re going to have your fun with this.

You gently lower his phone with your hand, and then take up the professional mannerisms around him for the very last time as you inform him, “Oooh, actually, I’m not, anymore. If you have information regarding Kyle Kuzma’s social media, though, I’d be more than happy to help you.”

If a person could combust solely out of anger, you’re going to need to call the LA bomb squad for Joshua.

“Ten, get over here,” he barks, summoning the other man back from the crowd. “What is she talking about, can you get this taken down?”

Ten takes a cursory, careless glance over Josh’s phone and doesn’t even try to hide his cackle. He composes himself, then both politely dismisses him,

“Sorry, I was transferred off of your account. If you have questions regarding Kyle Kuzma’s schedule, though, I’d be more than happy to help you.”

Ten looks at you out of the corner of his eyes, and you know you’ll both be celebrating tonight.

“Y/n. Y/n!”

You leave Joshua Hong standing there, calling after you desperately, surrounded by a crowd of people all buzzing with nefarious gossip about him. It’s nothing short of a superb way to exit his life.

Ten gets a phone call, and so he leaves you and Jaehyun with a wink. You’re not sure what to say, overwhelmed by the hilarity and confusion of the past fifteen minutes, and he seems content to just endlessly stroll throughout the thinning crowds of the Staples Center.

It’s not until you reach the stairs leading to the section of the arena where you’d sat for your first game together that he ventures, “So, Kyle Kuzma?”

You let him help you up the stairs to where the seats are, and tell him about your impending switch, “Yes, it’s very new, but he had the open spot, and I enjoyed working with him. And I know I won’t fall in love with him.”

You add the last part in tentatively, hoping that a joke will lighten the mood, and he pulls a face, sarcastically quipping, “Ha, ha. Very funny.”

He plops down on the nearest seat, pulling you over so that you’re sitting next to him. Your knees brush, his hand doesn’t leave yours, and you admit it to the ice,

“I went home to my aunt’s and I finally listened to your song.”

Jaehyun stares at you in surprise. “You, you did?”

You hum a little bit of the melody. “It was nice.”

“Nice, huh?” He chuckles at your bland description, and something about that pricks tears at your eyes. You’d like to have that little sound in your ear forever.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t do it earlier. It would’ve made everything clear,” your fingers tighten themselves around his, just like you want to be tucked into him right now. “I’m not that same person anymore, and I just want to make sure you’re okay with that.”

You’ve grown up and you’ve changed, but that little girl’s heart has expanded into yours, her tiny seeds make up the dandelion of who you are now.

Jaehyun nods, a strand of his lilac hair falling into his eyes, and that’s it.

“I’m sorry, for lying to you. For everything.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he admits, muted but honest. “I, I can admit I was a little naive.”

You know he’s gotten the nitty gritty from Mark, but you want him to hear it from you, “I have to say this, I never was using you. I’m pretty sure I liked you more the day we met, than I ever, _ever_ liked him.”

“That’s a relief,” he wipes away some mock sweat from his forehead, then his tone sobers up. “I never actually thought you were a life ruiner or user. You’re like, the most selfless person I know.”

You use your other hand to copy him, to wipe at your forehead, and then you echo, “That’s a relief.”

He grins and your heart is healed and you want to tease him even further, “So, what? Do you sing to me now, Shawn Mayer?”

“Shawn Mayer?” Jaehyun’s laughter rings through the arena, more powerful than the national anthem, more intoxicating than the roar of a jubilant crowd. “That’s a new one. I don’t know, do you want me to?”

“I want you guys to shut the fuck up and kiss already,” Mark drawls, peeking out from his hiding place at the bottom of the steps, and Jaehyun flips him off from his seat.

You flash him your middle finger as well, but then your gaze softens. “Nice rap out there Mark, thanks.”

“Til the sparkly end, baby!!!” Mark sticks his fist in the air like he’s just won the Stanley Cup, then he circles his hand. “Now, let’s go!”

Jaehyun is your very, very first love. You’ve loved him all these years, from the time when he’d been nothing but an LA pretty boy to the moment you realized he was the boy from the park to having him here with you now. You’d liked him then, loved him even. Now you like him again,

“Love me again?” You ask him, because you think you know, but you just have to make sure.

“Love you again,” Jaehyun promises, index finger dancing right by your freckled cheek. “Cross my heart.”

You cross an x on his chest with your thumb, and then he kisses you.

(Mark cheers.)

—

You and Mark munch on Popeyes as you watch Jaehyun get set up for the interview, the two of you hidden out of view in this little corner of the studio.

He’s just finished filming the music video for _sunshine,_ one week of work on set that evoked the most nostalgic memories in you. He’s magically picked up that park from the suburbs and transplanted it here, gotten the lighting perfect and everything.

You don’t know where he’s found these kid actors, this boy with the chubbiest dimpled face, and a little girl that when her hair’s pulled back, looks just like you at ten. You certainly have no idea where the costume team has found the exact same yellow dandelion fabric to make a dress for the young actress, but you’re going to have to ask them. It’ll look lovely draped over your couch.

Your couch meaning you and Jaehyun’s, because why waste time? You live closer to where he needs to be for work, anyways.

“This is Krystal with E!News, here on the music video set of _sunshine in the moonlight_. Mr. Jung, tell us, how do you feel?” The reporter says into the camera, before she turns to the man of the hour.

“I’m very happy,” Jaehyun lounges back in his chair, the king of the world as it seems. “We actually just wrapped up filming for the week. I think it’s going to be great.”

“You recently made the decision to go by your given name Jaehyun instead of Jeffrey,” she reads off the cards, though she doesn’t have a problem with saying his name. “Can you tell us a bit more about that?”

“It just felt right. Like I’m finally me.” You’re happy for him, that he’s comfortable enough to do this.

“Can you give us any spoilers about what we can expect from the video?” Krystal asks next, and how have the lights not blown out with the incandescence of him?

“You get to live what I lived when I met the girl this song is about, probably the best week of my life.” His head turns a fraction of a degree to his right, a gesture reserved just for you, and you stick your tongue out at him.

“And you know I have to ask it, but can you tell us about her?”

“Yeah, I can,” he answers, and the sandwich freezes halfway up to your mouth.

“Oh, what?” Krystal is as taken aback as you are, delighted and shocked expressions on her and her camera crew’s faces. “Is this the first time you’re ever going to be speaking about her?”

“Yeah,” his easy, lazy, beautiful grin is just too much. “I think so.”

“This is amazing.”

“She’s here, actually,” Jaehyun divulges to the camera with a knowing smirk, and you can just see the public eating it up. “But she’ll come on camera only if she wants to.”

“Ohohoho,” Mark chortles as he elbows you in the side. “This should be good.”

Krystal squeals in anticipation as your heart deliciously flip flops in your chest. You hadn’t had this conversation with Jaehyun since you’d sat on the floor of your bedroom and implored him not to reveal you to the world. But so much has transpired since then, and you know it won’t be bad in the way you’re expecting.

After all, he did said he’d show you off.

“Hey, sunshine!” Jaehyun turns his head and waves, calling out to you like he does every morning. “D’you want to?”

And did you? Want to go on camera with Jaehyun?

You fiddle with the scrap of yellow ribbon tied around your wrist, and there’s no other answer, really.

“Yeah. I do.”

**fin.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed!
> 
> yall have no idea just how hard writing a song is i swear that was the toughest part for me lol. also sry to any svt fans for turning josh into a villain. he seems like an irl sweetheart!
> 
> i have some old exo fics on my harddrive i can upload if you want me to hehe lmk!


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